DLTK's Poems
Opportunity
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 bested,
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.
