Lost Chances

Was if fear that made you shy away

From the homeless woman in the street
Did she look much to unnatural
Lying huddled at your feet
Was the broken bottle by her arm
The token that nettled your heart’s conceit
Though it wasn’t the first you’d ever seen
And it wasn’t the last you’d ever meet
Yet you left her lying in the street
And her only blanket was the sleet

But now you mourn for your poor lost chance!

He could have taken that difficult job

And made a fresh stand for the cause that was right
Why didn’t he bind up the poor widow’s wounds
Or save her babe from the blight
Now somewhere in Africa hearts will bleed
By the smouldering ruins of an old bomb site
Sure, he might have helped, but how much could he do?
So more grief-struck souls will cry tonight
And their blistering tears will scald the night
Because he once gave up the fight

And murdered another chance

Did she heed the hunger in her heart

When she passed the singers in the mall
Would her life have taken a different path
If she’d leafed through a tract from their stall
Now her husband’s left and she’s starting to feel
The early effects of her last pub crawl
Accusing voices remind her again of
Those singers behind the old town hall
The ones who were praising their all in all
And somehow she felt that she heard him call

But turned and abandoned a chance

Now, I am the God every lost chance

I gave them to you but you walked right on
I offered you life but you chose to advance
Onto wallets, and money, and death
Those were my children, the poor and the weak
They now live in my splendour, they dine in my manse
To you they were worthless, to me precious gold
Now in my presence they sing and they dance
But all that you cared for were stocks and finance
And in giving you could have got heavenly grants

As much as you turned from my needy ones, you turned away from
me