IN the twilight of November's
Afternoons I like to sit,
Finding fancies in the embers
Long before my lamp is lit;
Calling Memory up and linking
Bygone day to distant scene;
Then, with feet on fender, thinking
Of the things that might have been.
Cradles, wedding-rings, and hatchments
Glow alternate in the fire.
Early loves and late attachments
Blaze a second—and expire.
With a moderate persistence
One may soon contrive to glean
Matters for a mock existence
From the things that might have been.
Handsome, amiable, and clever—
With a fortune and a wife;—
So I make my start whenever
I would build the fancy life.
After all my bright ideal,
What a gulf there is between
Things that are, alas! too real,
And the things that might have been.
Often thus, alone and moody,
Do I act my little play—
Like a ghostly Punch and Judy,
Where the dolls are grave and gay—.
Till my lamplight comes and flashes
On the phantoms I have seen,
Leaving nothing but the ashes
Of the things that might have been.