From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 137-138.
FATE
There is a blank-verse bard who states
That men are masters of their fates.
I like his runes so full of spunk,
But what he says at first seems bunk.
Each one of us is like Jack Horner,
We’re eating pies, each in his corner.
We reach in blindly after plums,
Some get them, others burn their thumbs,
Or when they seize the luscious boon,
It like as not turns out a prune.
Though winters freeze or summers melt us,
We have to play what cards are dealt us.
And yet at that, the bard I quote,
May have some sense in what he wrote.
“In the fell clutch of circumstance,”
We still may have a fighting chance.
Though blows may fall upon our crown,
We need not take them sitting down.
East of the sea or west of it,
We still may make the best of it.
They may be right those Hindoo men,
Who teach that we are born again,
Just circle ’round from death to birth
[138]
And keep on coming to the earth.
The way we ran our previous race,
In each new life must fix our place.
Believe me, folks, if this is so,
I want to do the best I know,
Lest I be born an Eskimo.
I hope I’ll keep all future dates
Within these same United States.
Should I be born in Dutch Guiana,
I’d have no chance to marry Hannah.