Poems About Opportunity

Table of Contents

1. Opportunity

   Behold! "The Door of Hope," ajar,
   And Freedom freely beckoning;
   She bids you gaze upon a star,
   And veer not from your reckoning!
   

   - Anonymous
   Opportunity

   “

   by Raymond Garfield Dandridge

   The shackles rend, your hands are free,
   You need no longer humb'ly bow
   Beneath the lash of tyranny;
   Go shape the molten metal now.
   

   Behold! "The Door of Hope," ajar,
   And Freedom freely beckoning;
   She bids you gaze upon a star,
   And veer not from your reckoning!
   

2. Opportunity

   They do me wrong who 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.
   

   - Walter Malone
   Opportunity

   “

   by Walter Malone

   
   

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   They do me wrong who 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 records of the day—
   At sunrise every soul is born again!
   

   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.
   

   Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell;
   Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven;
   Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
   Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.
   

   Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,
   To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb;
   My judgments seal 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!
   

3. Opportunity

   I knock, unbidden, once at every gate!
   If sleeping, wake — if feasting, rise before
   I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
   

   - John James Ingales
   Opportunity

   “

   by John James Ingales

   Master of human destinies am I!
   Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait.
   Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
   Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
   Hovel and mart and palace — soon or late
   I knock, unbidden, once at every gate!
   If sleeping, wake — if feasting, rise before
   I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
   And they who follow me reach every state
   Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
   Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
   Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
   Seek me in vain and uselessly implore.
   I answer not, and I return no more!
   

4. Your Mission

   Do not then stand idly waiting
   For some greater work to do;
   Fortune is a lazy goddess,
   She will never come to you.
   Go and toil in any vineyard,
   Do not fear to do or dare,
   If you want a field of labor,
   You can find it anywhere.
   

   - Ellen H. Gates
   Your Mission

   “

   by Ellen H. Gates

   
   

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   If you cannot on the ocean
   Sail among the swiftest fleet,
   Rocking on the highest billows,
   Laughing at the storms you meet,
   You can stand among the sailors,
   Anchored yet within the bay,
   You can lend a hand to help them,
   As they launch their boats away.
   

   If you are too weak to journey
   Up the mountain, steep and high,
   You can stand within the valley,
   While the multitudes go by.
   You can chant in happy measure,
   As they slowly pass along;
   Though they may forget the singer
   They will not forget the song.
   

   If you have not gold and silver
   Ever ready to command,
   If you cannot toward the needy
   Reach an ever open hand,
   You can visit the afflicted,
   O'er the erring you can weep,
   You can be a true disciple,
   Sitting at the Saviour's feet.
   

   If you cannot in the conflict
   Prove yourself a soldier true,
   If where the fire and smoke are thickest
   There's no work for you to do,
   When the battle-field is silent,
   You can go with careful tread,
   You can bear away the wounded,
   You can cover up the dead.
   

   Do not then stand idly waiting
   For some greater work to do;
   Fortune is a lazy goddess,
   She will never come to you.
   Go and toil in any vineyard,
   Do not fear to do or dare,
   If you want a field of labor,
   You can find it anywhere.
   

5. Opportunity

   "I am that maid whose secret few may steal
   Called Opportunity. I hasten by
   Because my feet are treading on a wheel,
   

   - Anonymous
   Opportunity

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   by Anonymous

   
   

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   "But who art thou, with curious beauty graced,
   O woman, stamped with some bright heavenly seal?
   Why go thy feet on wings, and in such haste?"
   

   "I am that maid whose secret few may steal
   Called Opportunity. I hasten by
   Because my feet are treading on a wheel,
   

   "Being more swift to run than birds to fly.
   And rightly on my feet my wings I wear,
   To blind the sight of those who track and spy;
   

   "Rightly in front I hold my scattered hair
   To veil my face, and down my breast to fall,
   Lest men should know my name when I am there;
   

   "And leave behind my back no wisp at all
   For eager folk to clutch, what time I glide
   So near. and turn. and pass beyond recall."
   

   Tell me; who is that Figure at thy side?"
   "Penitence. Mark this well that by degree
   Who lets me go must keep her for his bride.
   

   "And thou hast spent much time in talk with me
   Busied with thoughts and fancies vainly grand,
   Nor hast remarked, O fool, neither dost see
   How lightly I have fled beneath thy hand."
   

6. Opportunity

   by Edward Rowland Sill

   This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:—
   There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
   And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
   A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
   Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
   Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
   A craven hung along the battle's edge,
   And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel—
   That blue blade that the king's son bears,—but this
   Blunt thing!" he snapped and flung it from his hand,
   And lowering crept away and left the field.
   Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,
   And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
   Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
   And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
   Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,
   And saved a great cause that heroic day.
   

7. The Door

   by Jessie Belle Rittenhouse

   
   

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   There was a door stood long ajar
   That one had left for me,
   While I went trying other doors
   To which I had no key.
   

   And when at last I turned to seek
   The refuge and the light,
   A gust of wind had shut the door
   And left me in the night.
   

8. Almost!

   by Emily Dickinson

   Within my reach!
   I could have touched!
   I might have chanced that way!
   Soft sauntered through the village,
   Sauntered as soft away!
   So unsuspected violets
   Within the fields lie low,
   Too late for striving fingers
   That passed, an hour ago.
   

   
   
   

   We cannot make bargains for blisses,
   Nor catch them like fishes in nets;
   And sometimes the thing our life misses
   Helps more than the thing which it gets.
   

   – Alice Cary
   Nobility

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