Explore "Has Been" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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!