No Star is Ever Lost

Have we not all, amid life's petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a noble life
That once seemed possible?
Did we not hear
The flutter of its wings and feel it near,
And just within our reach? It was. And yet
We lost it in this daily jar and fret.
But still our place is kept and it will wait,
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.
No star is ever lost we once have seen:
We always may be what we might have been.

by Adelaide Proctor