OPPORTUNITY

 

     OPPORTUNITY

                       A Poem by the American poet Walter Malone (1866 1915)

 

This highly significant poem with a message of endless hope in the mercy and generosity of God needs to be read by every individual, both innocent and guilty, though more by the obstinate guilty who frequently promise to lead a holy life but  go on re-living   the life of habitual viciousness. 

‘Opportunity’ is also a poem of faith in God’s boundless as also ceaseless kindness towards behaviourally irresponsible individuals. One may even go to the extent of calling  ‘‘Opportunity’’ a motivational poem that succeeds in uplifting  us  when we are  deeply  depressed and pessimistic.

 The gist of  the poem is that it is never late to mend because the hospitable doors of God ‘s house are never closed upon any one who comes with a  repentant heart.   

                                   

This is what  the poet says in the ultimate stanza of the poem :

                                   

Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from the spell

                                    Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven;

                                    Each morning gives the wings to flee from hell,

                                    Each night a star to guide thy feet to Heaven.

 

It is pertinent to ask here who in this world is not,  or has not been,  or will not be a sinner? There may be some rare exceptions, but the general fact is that:

         

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

 

The full text of the poem reads as follows:

 

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.

 

Tho’ deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep;

I lend my arm to all who say, “I can!”

Not shamefaced 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 though 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.

 

            The poem is so simple and so easy with a message of regeneration, even rejuvenation, that it needs no further explanation or interpretation.  What it says to every reader is that repentance over the past misdeeds that may lead to hell is needless because the scope for undoing their hellish effect is always existent for one who really wills to have such a transformation.

                        “Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,

                        Each night a star to guide thy feet to Heaven.”  

  

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25 July 2021                                                                G. R. Kanwal