If we could see a beckoning gleam ahead -- On this strange, winding road that we call life -- Revealing heights that we might climb -- instead Of groping here and there through places rife With danger . . . fighting every day for standing room, And staking all we have on circumstance; Oh, then, what splendor unreleased might loom On paths which often seem controlled by chance. And yet -- no seed can choose where it will grow, And where sweet perfume of the rose shall greet The traveler, the rose cannot foreknow, -- But nature never yet has met defeat. Our steps, perhaps, are firmer in the dark -- Our eyes grow keener searching for a spark? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET: OF THREE GIRLS AND OF THEIR TALK by GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO A THUNDER-STORM (2ND VERSION) by EMILY DICKINSON CACOETHES SCRIBENDI by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES IMITATIONS OF HORACE: ODE IV, 1 by ALEXANDER POPE AFTER DEATH by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS EACH FLEETING DAY by CHARLOTTE LOUISE BERTLESEN |