Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, For rich repiner and household drudge! God pity them both! and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall; For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'

A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law. Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, 'It might have been.'

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoe…

He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power. Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, He watched a picture come and go: And s…

Alas! how easily things go wrong! A sigh too deep or a kiss too long, And then comes a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again.

I saw thee in a vision of the night Transfigured; for it seemed that on thy brows The heavens did rest with all their stars, like boughs Laden with blossoms; r…

But, oh! fell death's untimely frost, That nipt my flower sae early.