Select Poetry.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 474, 8 February 1881, Page 2

Select Poetry.

WHAT "MIGHT HAVE BEEN."

I sit alone by-my glimmering fire, While 1 dream in the flickering light, And visions fair come forth and expire, And are lost to my wistful sight, While I, -sighing,-gaze on each fading scene ; For they are not what is, but what " might have been."

My room is silent—no pattering feet Are hoard on my study floor ; No faces fair, no visions sweet, Peep in at tho open door ; Only, my niem'ry keeps ever green Those pleasant things that '■ might have been."

A form is sitting beside tne now, With daikly earnest eyes, And a cool white hand on my fevered

brow. Like a blessing from heaven lies. Ah ! what weary hours have passed between.

Since she jo'incd'theforms.of " what might have been."

And childish shapes come out of the gloom And clamber about my knee, And rosy faces, like (lowers, bloom Around tlii-« gnarled old-tree ; But a dispcr-es (he charming scene. And away flit the ghosts of what " might have been."

Ono golden head I always see, With its. we.-ilth->f t oigled curls ;

She comes ami nestles against my knee, The fairest of my f>irls. But she flits with the rest —and the pain is keen As I think she is only wh.it " might have been."

A dark-eyed boy, with a stu lent's face, As le leans o'er his mother's chair, Roealls to my mind that dear old place, My college and loved ones I here. Now pupils and masters, and learned derm, Have solved the puzzle—what " might have been."

I am left alone, but my- heart is glal As I sit by my glowing hearth ; For I would not leave my visions fair, To join in another's mirth — My girls and boy and household queen. Although they are only " wlmt might have been."

For they comfort my home, and cheer my heart ' These shadows of other years : In all my sorrows they bear a part, And dry my falling teara— For I lift my eyevi to another scene : In Ibaven there will bu no' ".might have been."