Fate, The Jester
By Arthur Guiterman
The planets are bells on his motley,
He fleers at the stars in their state,
He banters the suns burning hotly–
The Jester whose nickname is Fate.
The lanterns that kindle their rays with
The comets, are food for his mirth;
But, oh, how he laughs as he plays with
His mad little bauble, the Earth!
He looks on the atomies crowding
The face of our pitiful ball;
His form in the nebulae shrouding,
He chuckles, unnoted of all
The valorous puppets that chatter
Superbly of Little and Great.
A flip of his finger would shatter
The dreams of these “Masters of Fate”–
He laughs at their strivings and rages
And tosses the murmurant sphere
To bowl through the zodiac-stages
That measure the groove of a Year.
He laughs as he trips up the maddest
Who scramble for power and place,
But laughs with the bravest and gladdest–
Fate’s comrades, who laugh in his face;
Who laugh at themselves and their troubles
Whatever the beaker they quaffe;
Who, laughing at Vanity’s bubbles,
Forget not to love as they laugh;
Who laugh in the teeth of disaster,
Yet hope through the darkness to find
A road past the stars to a Master
Of Fate in the vastness behind.
