'Ah, me, but it might have been! <br />Was there ever so dismal a fate?' - <br />Quoth the little blue mandarin. <br /> <br />'Such a maid as was never seen! <br />She passed, though I cried to her 'Wait' - <br />Ah me, but it might have been! <br /> <br />'I cried, 'O my Flower, my Queen, <br />Be mine!' 'Twas precipitate' - <br />Quoth the little blue mandarin - <br /> <br />'But then . . . she was just sixteen, <br />Long-eyed - as a lily straight - <br />Ah me, but it might have been! <br /> <br />'As it was,from her palankeen, <br />She laughed - 'You're a week too late!' ' <br />(Quoth the little blue mandarin.) <br /> <br />'That is why, in a mist of spleen, <br />I mourn on this Nankin Plate. <br />Ah me, but it might of been!' - <br />Quoth the little blue mandarin.<br /><br />Henry Austin Dobson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-a-nankin-plate/
