FATE

Fate hit me very hard one day.

I cried: "What is my fault?

What have I done? What causes, pray,

This unprovoked assault?"

She paused, then said: "Darned if I know;

I really can't explain."

Then just before she turned to go

She whacked me once again!

—La Touche Hancock.

So in the Libyan fable it is told

That once an eagle stricken with a dart,

Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,

"With our own feathers, not by others' hands,

Are we now smitten."

—Aeschylus.