Samuel Butler

                                  from

     The Genuine Remains, 1759

   Man is supreme lord and master
Of his own ruin and disaster ;
Controls his fate, but nothing less
In ordering his own happiness ;
For all his care and providence
Is too, too feeble a defence,
To render it secure and certain
Against the injuries of Fortune ;
And oft, in spite of all his wit,
Is lost with one unlucky hit,
And ruined with a circumstance,
And mere punctilio, of chance.




From:
    Restoration Verse. William Kerr, Ed.
    London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1930. 8.






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