Thursday, October 10, 2013

Lyrical Thursdays: Opportunity

Today's poem is one that I was given by a friend when I was a missionary in Thailand about 11 years ago.  I keep it in my beat-up (well-loved!) copy of the Book of Mormon, in the middle of some of the war chapters in Alma (where two ancient groups battled on the American continents).  It reminds me that attitude and outlook can really affect the way we perceive a situation.

Opportunity

Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887)

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.


If you know me well, you know that I have a deep love for (and mild obsession with) the Harry Potter series.  I recently found J.K. Rowling's companion site to the books, Pottermore, which has a lot of bonus information including extended backgrounds on many characters.  One of those characters is Sir Cadogan, the slightly zany knight in a painting at Hogwarts who helps Harry, Ron, and Hermione find their divination classroom in book three (and pops up again later in the story).

Sir Cadogan and his fat pony

Part of Sir Cadogan's history (copyright J.K. Rowling on Pottermore.com) made me think of the above poem and the message it's telling us:

"Sir Cadogen's most famous encounter was with the Wyvern of Wye, a dragonish creature that was terrorizing the West Country.  At their first encounter, the beast ate Sir Cadogan's handsome steed, bit his wand in half and melted his sword and visor.  Unable to see through the steam rising from his melting helmet, Sir Cadogan barely escaped with his life.  However, rather than running away, he staggered into a nearby meadow, grabbed a small, fat pony grazing there, leapt upon it and galloped back towards the wyvern with  nothing but his broken wand in his hand, prepared to meet a valiant death.  The creature lowered its fearsome head to swallow Sir Cadogan and the pony whole, but the splintered and misfiring wand pierced its tongue, igniting the gassy fumes rising from its stomach and causing the wyvern to explode.

"Elderly witches and wizards still use the saying, 'I'll take Cadogan's pony' to mean, 'I'll salvage the best I can from a tricky situation'."

That last line there says it all.  Sometimes in life we are stuck in a tricky situation, whether of our own making or someone else's, and need to do the best that we can in it without running away.  Or we may think that what we have isn't good enough to win the battles we are waging.  But with the right attitude and outlook, we can "take Cadogan's pony," or grab up that broken sword, and prepare for whatever may come (and maybe give those around us a leg up in the process).  We may not all be Gryffindors**, but we can all find bravery within us to face our battles and, against all odds, win.


*craven |ˈkrāvən| - adjective
contemptibly lacking in courage; cowardly
**Yes, yes, I know.  Nerd alert.  ;)

No comments: