FAILURE AT FORTY

He saw there was no choice to left or right —

Time that had marked him for the least of sages

Pointed the hour, and several blotted pages

Stood witness to the struggle in the night.

Behind him lay a happiness that might

Have made him shine a figure through the ages;

Before him loomed a toiling at mean wages,

Alternative to sinking out of sight.

This much was sure — he never need retrace;

The leagues that he had travelled were an ending.

There wound no footpath to a sunlit place,

Where he might nurse his dreams, with peace attending.

No promised joy would quicken the day's pace,

Nor write the past a blunder still worth mending.