There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

William Shakespeare.

OPPORTUNITY

To the thought of the preceding poem we have here a direct answer.  No matter how a man may have failed in the past, the door of opportunity is always open to him.  He should not give way to useless regrets; he should know that the future is within his control, that it will be what he chooses to make it.

  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!

  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!

  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.

Walter Malone.

OPPORTUNITY

In this poem yet another view of opportunity is presented.  The recreant or the dreamer complains that he has no real chance.  He would succeed, he says, if he had but the implements of success—­money, influence, social prestige, and the like.  But success lies far less in implements than in the use we make of them.  What one man throws away as useless, another man seizes as the best means of victory at hand.  For every one of us the materials for achievement are sufficient.  The spirit that prompts us is what ultimately counts.

  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,