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.
Wail not for preciouschances passed away;
Each night I burn the records of the day;
At sunrise every soul is born again.
Laugh like a [child] 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 deap in mire wring not your hands and weep,
I lend my arm to all who say, "I can!"
No shamefaced outcast ever sank to 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? Sin may be forgive;
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.

by Walter Malone

I will kid you not, I often have to repeat to myself as Lincoln did, "And this, will soon pass."