Opportunity

Because I ply a pawky pen
    And rhyme's a bonny trade,
I pity brother minstrel men
    Who fail to make the grade.
Because a lucky lot I drew
    And live in lyric France,
I'm sorry for the fellows who
    Have never had a chance.

A pasty shambler of the slums
    I might as well have been,
My lips of music stricken dumb
    By duties dark and mean.
E'vn had I been a Burns or Keats,
    With pallid brats to cling,
How could I from the sordid streets
    have had a heart to sing?

They say that Opportunity
    Knocks once on every door:
I question it - although for me
    It's tapped a-many more.
It oft' forgets, and that is why
    I cry: "For pity's sake,
God help the guys as good as I
    Who never-get a-break".