This blog post is taken from my book Golden Nuggets, and it’s simply a poem written by Edward Rowland Sill.
It’s entitled “Opportunity,” and it goes like this…
This I beheld, or dreamed 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 in by foes.
A craven hung along the battle’s edge and thought,
“Had I a sword of keener steel;
the blue blade that the king’s son bears, but this blunt thing…”
He snapt and flung it from his hand,
And lowering, he crept away and left the field.
Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and he saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And he ran and he snatched it,
And with battle-shout lifted afresh,
He hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.
