The Poetry Corner

The Girls We Might Have Wed.

By Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Come, brothers, let us sing a dirge, - A dirge for myriad chances dead; In grief your mournful accents merge: Sing, sing the girls we might have wed! Sweet lips were those we never pressed In love that never lost the dew In sunlight of a love confessed, - Kind were the girls we never knew! Sing low, sing low, while in the glow Of fancy's hour those forms we trace, Hovering around the years that go; Those years our lives can ne'er replace! Sweet lips are those that never turn A cruel word; dear eyes that lead The heart on in a blithe concern; White hand of her we did not wed; Fair hair or dark, that falls along A form that never shrinks with time; Bright image of a realm of song, Standing beside our years of prime; - When you shall go, then may we know The heart is dead, the man is old. Life can no other charm bestow When girls we might have loved turn cold!