Friday, July 4, 2014

fortune

But Fortune, like some others of her sex,
 Delights in tantalizing and tormenting.
 One day we feed upon their smiles, -the next
 Is spent in swearing, sorrowing, and repenting.

Eve never walked in Paradise more pure
 Than on that morn when Satan played the devil
 With her and all her race. A lovesick wooer
 Ne'er asked a kinder maiden, or more civil,
 Than Cleopatra was to Antony
 The day she left him on the Ionian sea.

The serpent-loveliest in his coiled ring,
With eye that charms, and beauty that outvies
 The tints of the rainbow-bears upon his sting
 The deadliest venom. Ere the dolphin dies
Its hues are brightest.

 Like an infant's breath
 Are tropic winds before the voice of death
 Is heard upon the waters, summoning
 The midnight earthquake from its sleep of years
 To do its task of woe. The clouds that fling
 The lightning brighten ere the bolt appears;
 The pantings of the warrior's heart are proud
 Upon that battle-morn whose night-dews wet his shroud

 The sun is loveliest as he sinks to rest;
 The leaves of Autumn smile when fading fast;
 The swan's last song is sweetest.

-The Bard

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