I

ROADS OF DESTINY


I go to seek on many roads
What is to be.
True heart and strong, with love to light--
Will they not bear me in the fight
To order, shun or wield or mould
My Destiny?

Unpublished Poems of David Mignot.


The song was over. The words were David's; the air, one of the
countryside. The company about the inn table applauded heartily,
for the young poet paid for the wine. Only the notary, M. Papineau,
shook his head a little at the lines, for he was a man of books, and
he had not drunk with the rest.

David went out into the village street, where the night air drove
the wine vapour from his head. And then he remembered that he and
Yvonne had quarrelled that day, and that he had resolved to leave
his home that night to seek fame and honour in the great world
outside.

"When my poems are on every man's tongue," he told himself, in a