Fortune

Within the hollowed hand of God,
Blood-red they lie, the dice of fate,
That have no time nor period,
And know no early and no late.

Postpone you can not, nor advance
Success or failure that's to be;
All fortune, being born of chance,
Is bastard-child to destiny.

Bow down your head, or hold it high,
Consent, defy--no smallest part
Of this you change, although the die
Was fashioned from your living heart.

Madison Julius Cawein

Madison Julius Cawein was born on March 23, 1865, in Louisville, Kentucky and died on December 8, 1914. Known as the “Keats of Kentucky,” his poetry often focused on nature, mythology, and the lush landscapes of his home state. Throughout his lifetime, Cawein published more than 30 books of poetry. He is remembered for his vivid and descriptive style and his ability to capture the beauty of the natural world. His works provide a window into the pastoral and often mystical world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Madison Julius Cawein

The Old Herb-Man

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Why Should I Pine?

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

The Spring.

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

Elusion

Madison Julius Cawein, Simple Poetry

English

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Fortune

Fortune may pass us by:
Follow her flying feet.
Love, all we ask, deny:
Never admit defeat.
Take heart again and try.
Never say die.

Madison Julius Cawein

To A Young Lady, Who Was Fond Of Fortune-Telling

You, Madam, may, with safety go
Decrees of destiny to know;
For at your birth kind planets reign'd,
And certain happiness ordain'd:
Such charms as yours are only given
To chosen favourites of Heaven.
But such is my uncertain state
'Tis dangerous to try my fate;
For I would only know from art
The future motions of your hert,
And what predestinated doom
Attends my love for years to come,
No secrets else that mortals learn
My cares deserve, or life concern;
But this will so important be
I dread to search the dark decree;
For while the smallest hope remains
Faint joys are mingled with my pains.
Vain distant views my fancy please,
And give some intermitting ease;
But should the stars too plainly show
That you have doom'd my endless wo,

Matthew Prior

Failure.

There are some souls
Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals
That adverse Fate controls.

While others win
With little labor through life's dust and din,
And lord-like enter in

Immortal gates;
And, of Success the high-born intimates,
Inherit Fame's estates. . .

Why is't the lot
Of merit oft to struggle and yet not
Attain? to toil for what?

Simply to know
The disappointment, the despair and woe
Of effort here below?

Ambitious still to reach
Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,
For which their souls beseech:

Those heights that swell
Remote, removed, and unattainable,
Pinnacle on pinnacle:

Still yearning to attain
Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,
But all in ...

Madison Julius Cawein

Death

Through some strange sense of sight or touch
I find what all have found before,
The presence I have feared so much,
The unknown's immaterial door.

I seek not and it comes to me:
I do not know the thing I find:
The fillet of fatality
Drops from my brows that made me blind.

Point forward now or backward, light!
The way I take I may not choose:
Out of the night into the night,
And in the night no certain clews.

But on the future, dim and vast,
And dark with dust and sacrifice,
Death's towering ruin from the past
Makes black the land that round me lies.

Madison Julius Cawein

Pan And Fortune.

        (To a Young Heir.)


        No sooner was thy father's death
        Proclaimed to some, with bated breath,
        Than every gambler was agog
        To win your rents and gorge your prog.

        One counted how much income clear
        You had in "ready" - by the year.

        Another cast his eyelid dark
        Over the mansion and the park.
        Some weighed the jewels and the plate,
        And all the unentailed estate:
        So much in land from mortgage free,
        So much in personality.

        Would you to highwaymen abroad
        Display your treasures on the road?
        Would you abet their raid of stealth
        By the display of hoarded wealth?
        And are you yet with blacklegs...

John Gay

An Ode To Fortune

O Lady Fortune! 't is to thee I call,
Dwelling at Antium, thou hast power to crown
The veriest clod with riches and renown,
And change a triumph to a funeral
The tillers of the soil and they that vex the seas,
Confessing thee supreme, on bended knees
Invoke thee, all.

Of Dacian tribes, of roving Scythian bands,
Of cities, nations, lawless tyrants red
With guiltless blood, art thou the haunting dread;
Within thy path no human valor stands,
And, arbiter of empires, at thy frown
The sceptre, once supreme, slips surely down
From kingly hands.

Necessity precedes thee in thy way;
Hope fawns on thee, and Honor, too, is seen
Dancing attendance with obsequious mien;
But with what coward and abject dismay
The faithless crowd and treacherous wantons...

Eugene Field