If the past year were offered me again, br With choice of good and ill before me set. br Should I be wiser for the bliss and pain br And dare to choose that we had never met? br Could I find heart those happy hours to miss, br When love began unthought of and unspoke br That first strange day when by a sudden kiss br We knew each other's secret and awoke? br Ah, no! not even to escape the smart br Of that fell agony I underwent, br Flying from thee and my own traitor heart, br Till doubts and dreads and battlings overspent, br I knew at last that thou or love or fate br Had conquered and repentance was too late.