John Greenleaf Whittier

Maud Muller (1856)

• Maud Muller, on a summer's day,
  Raked the meadows sweet with hay.
  Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
  Of simple beauty and rustic health.

• So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
  And Maud was left in the field alone.
  But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
  When he hummed in court an old love-tune

• He wedded a wife of richest dower,
  Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
  Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
  He watched a picture come and go:
  And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
  Looked out in their innocent surprise.

• A manly form at her side she saw,
  And joy was duty and love was law.
  Then she took up her burden of life again,
  Saying only, "It might have been."

• Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
  For rich repiner and household drudge!
  God pity them both! and pity us all,
  Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
  For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
  The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
  • Bret Harte wrote a famous parody of this famous poem, "Mrs. Judge Jenkins" in which the Judge marries Maud, and which he ends with the lines:
    Maud soon thought the Judge a bore,
    With all his learning and all his lore;
    And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face
    For more refinement and social grace.
    If, of all words of tongue and pen,
    The saddest are, "It might have been,"
    More sad are these we daily see:
    "It is, but hadn't ought to be."