Page:Pictures In Rhyme.djvu/93



How strange our lives! A wayward breath Upon the current of the mind May change its course—an idle wind, Filled full with fate, or life, or death.

It comes upon us unaware, It steals into our very soul, Transmutes our being, and the whole 'What might have been' dissolves in air—

And 'That which must be' takes its place At some strange crisis of our life; A winning or a losing strife— Victor or vanquished in the race.

'Tis pitiful how slight a thing, Unsought, unnoticed at the time, May plunge us in a slough of crime, Or set a bare tree blossoming.