Be encouraged by these poems about regret. The feeling of regret is one that all of us experience at one time or another in our lives. Regret or remorse or guilt however you want to define it makes us wish we had not done something that
we did or we wish we had done something we did not do. The verses here all discuss these feelings.
Here's to "The days that might have been";
Here's to "The life I might have led";
The fame I might have gathered in--
The glory ways I might have sped.
Great "Might Have Been," I drink to you
Upon a throne where thousands hail--
And then--there looms another view--
I also "might have been" in jail.
O "Land of Might Have Been," we turn
With aching hearts to where you wait;
Where crimson fires of glory burn,
And laurel crowns the guarding gate;
We may not see across your fields
The sightless skulls that knew their woe--
The broken spears--the shattered shields--
That "might have been" as truly so.
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen"--
So wails the poet in his pain--
The saddest are, "It might have been,"
And world-wide runs the dull refrain.
The saddest? Yes--but in the jar
This thought brings to me with its curse,
I sometimes think the gladdest are
"It might have been a blamed sight worse."
Is the road very dreary?
Patience yet.
Rest will be sweeter if thou art a-weary,
And after night cometh the morning cheery;
Then bide a wee and dinna fret.
The clouds have silver lining,
Don't forget.
And though he's hidden, still the sun is shining;
Courage! instead of tears and vain repining,
Just bide a wee and dinna fret.
With toil and cares unending
Art beset?
Bethink thee how the storms, from heaven descending,
Snap the stiff oak, but spare the willow bending,
And bide a wee and dinna fret.
Grief sharper sting doth borrow
From regret;
But yesterday is gone, and shall its sorrow
Unfit us for the present and the morrow?
Nay; bide a wee and dinna fret.
An over-anxious brooding
Doth beget
A host of fears and fantasies deluding;
Then, brother, lest these torments be intruding,
Just bide a wee and dinna fret.
Let the truth of truth be said,
Regret stalks when procrastination is fed.
Each should rise with vigor and will,
Determined to perform tasks until fulfilled.
Unwillingness to persevere has doom in its wake,
Much of life's joy and hope thus we forsake.
Put off what could done today,
And hindered good fortune that could come your way.
Whose luck is better far than ours?
The other fellow's.
Whose road seems always lined with flowers?
The other fellow's.
Who is the man who seems to get
Most joy in life, with least regret,
Who always seems to win his bet?
The other fellow.
Who fills the place we think we'd like?
The other fellow.
Whom does good fortune always strike?
The other fellow.
Whom do we envy, day by day?
Who has more time than we to play?
Who is it, when we mourn, seems gay?
The other fellow.
Who seems to miss the thorns we find?
The other fellow.
Who seems to leave us all behind?
The other fellow.
Who never seems to feel the woe,
The anguish and the pain we know?
Who gets the best seats at the show?
The other fellow.
And yet, my friend, who envies you?
The other fellow.
Who thinks he gathers only rue?
The other fellow.
Who sighs because he thinks that he
Would infinitely happier he,
If he could be like you or me?
The other fellow.
Have we not all, amid lifers petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a noble life
That once seemed possible? Did we not hear
The flutter of its wings and feel it near.
And just within our reach? It was. And yet
We lost it in this daily jar and fret.
But still our place is kept and it will wait,
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.
No star is ever lost we once have seen:
We always may be what we might have been.
We hope these poems make you think about any regrets that you have. But more importantly, rather than dwell on the regrets do something to fix them if you can and if you can't fix a regret then focus on the lesson learned and move on!