Is life a gentle, caressing breeze
Weaving through the leaves of trees?
Or a tumultuous gale with malice
Tossing the boat in rough seas?

Is life a baby’s cherubic smile,
Utterly void of craft and guile?
Or a wicked grin born in wile,
Filled with cruel venom and bile.

Is life an uplifting wind blown,
Bent on bestowing the winning crown?
Or a deadly mire pulling down,
With definite design to drown?

Does life bring joys in bundles,
Where only easy jobs one handles?
Or a bitter race of non-stop hurdles;
And a hateful animosity, it kindles?

Is life a sweet bed of roses,
Which never a harm poses?
Or a game one always loses
And every exit to escape closes?

Is life a rare delicacy
Spiced with endless variety?
Or a path of unfathomable mystery
Thorned with merciless treachery?

Life indeed is a Janus-
With a face, fair and wondrous,
And another, freakish and callous.
Oh! Lord! Hide the second from us!