On a Nankin Plate

“Ah me, but it might have been!
Was there ever so dismal a fate?”

—
Quoth the little blue mandarin.

“Such a maid as was never seen!
She passed, though I cried to her ‘Wait,’—
Ah me, but it might have been!

“I cried, ‘O my Flower, my Queen,
Be mine!’ ’Twas precipitate,”—
Quoth the little blue mandarin,—

“But then... she was just sixteen,—
Long-eyed,—as a lily straight,—
Ah me, but it might have been!

“As it was, from her palankeen,
She laughed—‘you’re a week too late!’”

(Quoth the little blue mandarin.)

“That is why, in a mist of spleen,
I mourn on this Nankin Plate.
Ah me, but it might have been!”
Quoth the little blue mandarin.

Austin Dobson.