This life--one was thinking to-day, <br />In the midst of a medley of fancies - <br />Is a game, and the board where we play <br />Green earth with her poppies and pansies. <br />Let manque be faded romances, <br />Be passe remorse and regret; <br />Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances - <br />The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette. <br /> <br />The lover will stake as he may <br />His heart on his Peggies and Nancies; <br />The girl has her beauty to lay; <br />The saint has his prayers and his trances; <br />The poet bets endless expanses <br />In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt: <br />How they gaze at the wheel as it glances - <br />The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette! <br /> <br />The Kaiser will stake his array <br />Of sabres, of Krupps, and of lances; <br />An Englishman punts with his pay, <br />And glory the jeton of France is; <br />Your artists, or Whistlers or Vances, <br />Have voices or colours to bet; <br />Will you moan that its motion askance is - <br />The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette? <br /> <br />ENVOY. <br /> <br />The prize that the pleasure enhances? <br />The prize is--at last to forget <br />The changes, the chops, and the chances - <br />The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette.<br /><br />Andrew Lang<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballade-of-roulette/
