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 quaff;
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.

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