| William Wilfred Campbell, comp. The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. 1913. | | | | Life’s Shaping Moments | | By 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. | |
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| Forward we press, towards some enchanted bower | 5 |
| That beckons us to come and taste its shade, | |
| And lo! beside our path a little flower, | |
| Unlooked-for, makes the farther vision fade. | |
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| To yonder great man came life’s wished-for honour, | |
| Which neither helped or stayed him from the goal;— | 10 |
| But in the throng that night he gazed upon her, | |
| And that one glance made history for his soul! | | | | |
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