Poem: “Has Been” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Poems of Sentiment

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American Literature – American Poetry – Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems of Sentiment
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Has Been

That melancholy phrase “It might have been,”
   However sad, doth in its heart enfold
   A hidden germ of promise! for I hold
Whatever might have been shall be.
      Though in
Some other realm and life, the soul must win
   The goal that erst was possible. But cold
   And cruel as the sound of frozen mould
Dropped on a coffin, are the words “Has been.”

“She has been beautiful”—“he has been great,”
“Rome has been powerful,” we sigh and say.
It is the pitying crust we toss decay,
The dirge we breathe o’er some degenerate state,
An epitaph for fame’s unburied dead.
God pity those who live to hear it said!

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American Literature – American Poetry – Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems of Sentiment

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Poems of Sentiment

Has Been

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