Only A Sad Mistake

Only a blunder—a sad mistake;

All my own fault and mine alone.

The saddest error a heart can make;

I was so young, or I would have known.

Only his rare, sweet, tender smile;

Only a lingering touch of his hand.

I think I was dreaming all the while,

The reason I did not understand.

Yet, somewhere,

I've read men woo this way;

That eyes speak, sometimes, before the tongue.

And I was sure he would speak some day;

Pardon the folly—I was so young.

Was I, say—for now I am old!

So old, it seems like a hundred

Since I felt my heart growing hard and

With a pain too bitter and deep for tears.

I saw him lean over the stranger's chair,

With a warm, new light in his beautiful eyes;

And I woke from my dreaming, then and there,

And went out of my self-made Paradise.

He never loved me—I know,

I see!

Such sad, sad blunders as young hearts make.

She did not win him away from me,

For he was not mine.

It was my mistake.

A woman should wait for a man to

Before she dreams of his love,

I own;

But I was a girl—girls' hearts are weak;

And the pain, like the fault, is mine alone.