Old So What

  For all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’                     John Greenleaf Whittier

  If thou of fortune be bereft And in thy store there be but left Two loaves—sell one, and with the dole Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul. This version of a famous poem appeared in The Century magazine in August 1907 by James Terry White, under the title “Not By Bread Alone” (My mother [Virginia’s] favorite, oft-quoted poem)