James Alexander Tucker (1872–1903)

THINGS we deemed greatest, looked at from the distance,

Have oft had little bearing on life’s course;

The trivial (as we judge), with strange insistence,

Doth tinge the years with gladness or remorse.

Forward we press, towards some enchanted bower

That beckons us to come and taste its shade,

And lo! beside our path a little flower,

Unlooked-for, makes the farther vision fade.

To yonder great man came life’s wished-for honour,

Which neither helped or stayed him from the goal;—

But in the throng that night he gazed upon her,

And that one glance made history for his soul!