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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Fate

Bret Harte

“The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare,
The spray of the tempest is white in air;
The winds are out with the waves at play,
And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.

“The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,
The panther clings to the arching limb;
And the lion’s whelps are abroad at play,
And I shall not join in the chase to-day.”

But the ship sailed safely over the sea,
And the hunters came from the chase in glee;
And the town that was builded upon a rock
Was swallowed up in the earthquake shock.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Complete Poetical Works | Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1902
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