What We Might Have Said

We live beside each other day by day

And speak of myriad things, but seldom say

The full sweet word that lies within our reach

Beneath the common ground of common speech;

Then out of sight and out of reach they go,

These dear, familiar friends that loved us so;

And, sitting in the shadows they have left,

Alone with loneliness and sore bereft,

We think with vain regret of some kind word

That once we might have said and they have heard.[1]

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[1] These lines were written by Nora Perry (1841-96).  She was an American poet, journalist, and writer of juvenile stories, and for some years Boston correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. She was born in Dudley, Mass. Her verse is collected in After the Ball (1875), Her Lover’s Friend (1879), New Songs and Ballads (1886), and Legends and Lyrics (1890). Her fiction, chiefly juvenile, includes The Tragedy of the Unexpected (1880), stories; For a Woman (1885), a novel; A Book of Love Stories (1881); A Flock of Girls and their Friends (1887); The New Year’s Call (1903); and many other volumes. These are briskly told and, like her verses, appeal to the sentiment of the broader reading public.