Nativity poem from the Innkeeper's perspective where he laments over not having known whom he pushed off In my latter High School days, as part of an oral communications course, I was required to memorize and deliver a poem before the class. I found one in the school library and met the requirement with decent marks. For some reason I cannot recall enough about this poem to find it again. Known details: * The perspective is that of the Innkeeper * A first person account of an error made was told in the past tense * There is a repeated lamentation of "Had I'd only known" or "If I'd only known" * I found the poem originally in a text that was a compilation of multiple authors (Pretty sure)

Here is a possibility.

The Inn That Missed Its Chance
By Amos Russel Wells

It reads in part:

> Could I know
> That they were so important? Just the two,
> No servants, just a workman sort of man,
> Leading a donkey, and his wife thereon
> Drooping and pale,–I saw them not myself,
> My servants must have driven them away;
> But had I seen them,–how was I to know?
> Were inns to welcome stragglers, up and down
> In all our towns from Beersheba to Dan,
> Till He should come? And how were men to know?