AES238 His Other Chance

He was down and out, and his pluck was gone,

And he said to me in a gloomy way:

"I've wasted my chances, one by one,

And I'm just no good, as the people say.

Nothing ahead, and my dreams all dust,

Though once there was something I might have been,

But I wasn't game, and I broke my trust,

And I wasn't straight and I wasn't clean."

"You're pretty low down," says I to him,

"But nobody's holding you there, my friend.

Life is a stream where men sink or swim,

And the drifters come to a sorry end;

But there's two of you living and breathing still—

The fellow you are, and he's tough to see,

And another chap, if you've got the will,

The man that you still have a chance to be."

He laughed with scorn. "Is there two of me?

I thought I'd murdered the other one.

I once knew a chap that I hoped to be,

And he was decent, but now he's gone."

"Well," says I, "it may seem to you

That life has little of joy in store,

But there's always something you still can do,

And there's never a man but can try once more.

-Edgar A. Guest-