I don’t have anything to write, really, so I thought I’d put in a poem I like. My dad brought a box of some of my old books when he came down on his way to the Great Quail Hunt, and I found some old favorites I’d forgotten I ever had. One is a book called One Hundred and One Famous Poems, and it contains a poem by John James Ingalls:
“Opportunity”
Master of human destinies am I.
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by
Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden, once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake—if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore—
I answer not, and I return no more.