Thou mighty Prince of Church and State, <br />Richelieu! until the hour of death, <br />Whatever road man chooses, Fate <br />Still holds him subject to her breath. <br />Spun of all silks, our days and nights <br />Have sorrows woven with delights; <br />And of this intermingled shade <br />Our various destiny appears, <br />Even as one sees the course of years <br />Of summers and of winters made. <br />Sometimes the soft, deceitful hours <br />Let us enjoy the halcyon wave; <br />Sometimes impending peril lowers <br />Beyond the seaman's skill to save, <br />The Wisdom, infinitely wise, <br />That gives to human destinies <br />Their foreordained necessity, <br />Has made no law more fixed below, <br />Than the alternate ebb and flow <br />Of Fortune and Adversity.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-cardinal-richelieu-from-malherbe/
