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Description
         Destiny

        'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

         Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

         Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

         And one by one back in the Closet lays.



         The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

         Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

         Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

         Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.



         With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man's knead,

         And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:

         Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote

         What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.



         Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,

         And wash my Body whence the life has died,

         And in a Windingsheet of Vineleaf wrapt,

         So bury me by some sweet Gardenside.



         And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,

         And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor—well,

         I often wonder what the Vintners buy

         One half so precious as the Goods they sell.

      Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald

Description
         Destiny

        'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

         Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

         Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

         And one by one back in the Closet lays.



         The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

         Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

         Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

         Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.



         With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man's knead,

         And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:

         Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote

         What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.



         Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,

         And wash my Body whence the life has died,

         And in a Windingsheet of Vineleaf wrapt,

         So bury me by some sweet Gardenside.



         And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,

         And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor—well,

         I often wonder what the Vintners buy

         One half so precious as the Goods they sell.

      Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald