Opportunity
Improvement Era, vol. 10, no. 9, July 1907, p. 672
Malone, Walter
OPPORTUNITY. [The Era is indebted to Elder Orson F. Whitney for the selection of this poem, which he considers much better than the one on the same subject in the April number. We believe he is correct. Editors.] They do me wrong that say I come no more When once I knock and fail to find you in; For every day I stand outside your door, And bid you wake and rise to fight and win. Wail not for precious chances passed away, Weep not for golden ages on the wane. Each night I burn the record of the day; At sunrise every soul is born again. Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped, To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments sea the dead past with its dead, ^ But never bind a moment yet to come. Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep; I lend my arm to all who say ' 'I can, ' No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep. But yet might rise and be again a man. Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast? Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow? Then turn from blotted archives of the past. And find the future's pages white as snow. Walter Malone