Opportunity

I was digging around in my computer seeing what I had. Kind of like digging around in your storage boxes and being nostalgic for things of old. In my first 4 months on my mission in Spain I was having trouble and getting grouchy. One of my friends gave me this poem he was translating into spanish. I used to read that poem every other day and by the time I got home that paper was ragged and torn. I typed it up and archived and just ran across it and thought I'd share it and maybe let someone else use it for inspiration.

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.

-Edward Roland Sill