THE GODDESS FORTUNA (Poem)

                                         

                                                          THE GODDESS FORTUNA

                                                           Thomas Hoskyns Leonard


                                                     

                            Goddess of chance, luck, and fate,

                            The Greek Tyche's soulmate

                            And the Egyptian Isis's intimate

                            Governed the circle of life on the Wheel of Fortune,

                            And took pleasure to importune,

                            Sometimes veiled and blind;

                            To Gaius and Lucius most unkind.

                            Full of life's capriciousness

                            Though could emulate Father Jupiter's bountifulness

                            Long before Pascal and De Fermat devised probability

                            To describe her lack of inscrutability



                            Servius Tullius built an Etruscan temple,

                            On the Tiber, her virtues there to sample;

                            At Forum Boarium she with Mater Matuta entwined,

                             And a cult was born, so refined;

                             On Midsummer's Day Romans made hay

                             And floated downstream while celebrating on the way;

                             Garlanded at the two temples, intoxicated they became

                             And rowed back inebriated to their everlasting fame,


                            Great Constantine the Goddess of Fortune's favours acquired,

                            But as Christ Jesus wished to be admired;

                            So as Constantinople rose they to Fortuna sang

                            While chanting the Kyrie as the bells merrily rang;

                            A pagan and Christian emperor bewitched was he,

                            And he utterly deserved his civil disharmony;

                             Poor Crispus chanced it, and Fausta in a steam-bath met her fate

                            'That wasn't just bad luck,' he thought, but much too late.


                           When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,

                           Bill Shakespeare all alone bewept his outcast state

                           And troubled deaf Heaven with his bootless cries

                           And looked upon himself and cursed his fate

                           If he hadn't chanced his luck, his pox wouldn't have killed his mate.



                         Luck, chance, and fate bemuse philosophers to this day

                         Maybe everything's predestined, but have it your way.

                         Our fortune is their misfortune,

                         As Isis rolls the die,

                         And secretive eugenics takes them like a fly;

                         Maybe we are all controlled by strange powers rippling from above;

                         Maybe the ruthless Gatekeepers are void of human love,