Fools may pine, and sots may swill,
Cynics gibe, and prophets rail,
Moralists may scourge and drill,
Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail.
Let them whine, or threat, or wail!
Till the touch of Circumstance
Down to darkness sink the scale,
Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

What if skies be wan and chill?
What if winds be harsh and stale?
Presently the east will thrill,
And the sad and shrunken sail,
Bellying with a kindly gale,
Bear you sunwards, while your chance
Sends you back the hopeful hail:--
'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Idle shot or coming bill,
Hapless love or broken bail,
Gulp it (never chew your pill!),
And, if Burgundy should fail,
Try the humbler *** of ale!
Over all is heaven's expanse.
Gold's to find among the shale.
Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

Dull Sir Joskin sleeps his fill,
Good Sir Galahad seeks the Grail,
Proud Sir Pertinax flaunts his frill,
Hard Sir AEger dints his mail;
And the while by hill and dale
Tristram's braveries gleam and glance,
And his blithe horn tells its tale:--
'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Araminta's grand and shrill,
Delia's passionate and frail,
Doris drives an earnest quill,
Athanasia takes the veil:
Wiser Phyllis o'er her pail,
At the heart of all romance
Reading, sings to Strephon's flail:--
'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Every Jack must have his Jill
(Even Johnson had his Thrale!):
Forward, couples--with a will!
This, the world, is not a jail.
Hear the music, sprat and whale!
Hands across, retire, advance!
Though the doomsman's on your trail,
Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

Envoy

Boys and girls, at slug and snail
And their kindred look askance.
Pay your footing on the nail:
Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

From Publius to Terra

Salve, amore mea,
I greet you from this new land,
My heart heavy with your absence,
Yet buoyed by the promise of our home.
...
Spare no thought for toils unfit for you,
My love, whose radiance rivals Juno.
A grand atrium will welcome your step,
Adorned with garlands for your triumph.
...
Through halls paved with Jove’s mosaic might,
Pastoral murals of Ceres’ fields will bloom,
Reflecting our farm in vibrant hues,
Your presence warming my impluvium’s heart.
...
A bedchamber awaits, fit for royalty,
Arched with cubes where Cupid dances,
His bow drawn to bind your heart to mine,
Sealing our love in eternal embrace.
...
All that remains is to build and sow,
Tilling under Sol and Luna’s gaze.
Watch over me, amore, from afar,
Your love my guide through field and toil.
...
I’ll write again with tales of this land,
Till our home rises to greet you.
Vale, amore mea,
The work endures for you.

Signed, PERTINAX

From Publius to Gaius

Gaius, how long have we toiled as one?
Three years, four, our sweat salting the soil?
Our blood yet stains each other’s altars,
Bound as brothers by the work’s sacred oath.
...
Have you forsaken that vow?
...
In shared turmoil, we wrestled petty thorns,
Crafting solutions from ceaseless strife.
Yet since Marcus came, you’ve turned away,
Leaving the labor to my weary hands.
...
Marcus, your jest of a comrade,
Fit for wine-soaked nights and fleeting charms,
Lacks the mettle to till or tend.
A leech, he clings, eyes wet with greed,
While I plow on, reaping what we sowed.
...
My sweat, my blood, still feed the earth,
While you share the harvest with his idle hands,
Tossing me scraps for fields I’ve raised.
...
He lounges in your atrium,
Savoring figs I’ve grown,
Lingering in leisure, not labor,
While the soil cries for care.
...
No more, Gaius. Keep your work,
And your Marcus, a shadow to your folly.
May your fields wither under his weight.
...
I offer myrrh and frankincense,
A final gift as I seek new lands.
My trade will thrive in greener fields,
Where seeds I sow will bloom unbound.
...
Under noonday sun, I’ll flourish,
While you and your work wilt without me.

Signed, PERTINAX

From Publius to Livia

Livia, I write to renounce your fields,
My sweat no longer yours to claim.
My harvests fed the eternal city,
Yet you see only Gaius and his shadow, Marcus.
...
Blind to the furrows I plowed,
The terraces I raised, the grapes I nurtured,
I tamed wild Ceres before you came,
Turning forest to field, field to farm.
...
Then you arrived, trailing discord’s hound,
Gorging on Gaius’s hollow praise,
Stealing credit for my toil,
Casting me as a shade on your wall.
...
I prayed to the Capitoline Triad,
Offered a white bull to Jupiter, king,
Begging radiant Sol to burn through your guise,
And bless my path with brighter horizons.
...
To Juno, I burned frankincense and myrrh,
Pleading ****** to sweep you astray,
Your pets adrift on Sicilian shores,
Left to Polyphemus’s wrathful gaze.
...
To Minerva, I poured my own wine,
Urging her to unmask your arachnid soul,
Your arrogance a web of self-woven lies,
Dagger-tipped legs stained with stolen blood.
...
The gods have heard, Livia. Your weave unravels.
My fields await under noonday sun,
While yours wither in my absence,
Your perfection a fading, frail deceit.

Signed, PERTINAX

From Publius to Marcus

Marcus, I owe you an apology:
I named you Antinous to Gaius’s Hadrian,
Not in jest, but with a curse to the gods,
Wishing ruin on your treacherous shade.
...
This farm, this land, was my charge
Long before you donned your Janus mask,
Feigning peace while sowing strife,
A weevil gnawing at the heart of my grain.
...
You bring chaos to these fields,
A blight worse than drought or rot,
Corrupting Gaius with your impious charm,
His fields now fallow under your shadow.
...
While I toil, bone-weary, in the searing heat,
Tending your fields and mine,
Sweat and soil my offering to kin and gods,
You claim the harvest I’ve sown.
...
My altars brim with piety,
The Capitoline triad blesses my soul and soil,
Yet you, sweet Antinous, reap my plenty,
Lazing in the shade of my labor’s fruit.
...
No more. I sever ties with you and this land.
Keep these fields—a fitting pyre for your folly.
I forge you a parting gift: a wreath of thorns,
Culled from the ruin you’ve wrought.
...
Woe to your plow, doomed to rust,
While I seek new fields to tend.
My seeds will bloom under noonday sun,
Your name forgotten, your shadow undone.

Signed, PERTINAX

To PERTINAX,

Too long has pain been a blanket,
Smothering your soul to flickering embers.

Your spark, caught in a continuous updraft,
Only to be lost amongst stars too far to see.

Pain, a forever companion, details the scars
That mar the beauty nature has sown within.

Darkness, forever a rain cloud, soaks a spirit
Bent and broken by fatherly expectation,

Unattainable,

By a son cursed to wonder why he feels alone,
When surrounded by love he cannot understand,

Or chooses not to,

For fear that feeling will hurt worse than the numbness,
Ever-present in the mask of hatred and jealousy,

Coveting all that he has not earned,
Wanting to be more than the sum of the parts he built,

Some of which lie shattered at his feet as tears fall,
Slowly lubricating gears that had atrophied

In a dark rigor mortis where bare fists seize,
Their constant beatings of black-and-blue memories,

Where control was subverted by passions not in line
With the values that created the monstrosity,

Inherited by a man whose lack of love stained him,
A tarnish that self-berates and self-hates the lack of love

He does not feel.

Choices that forever hold back the sway of emotion
He was never equipped to deal with,

Even when surrounded by motherly affection
That consistently put him first, even when she was last.

Shame is not a big enough word to describe the pain
Of letting down the single light in his world,

That has full faith he can shed the weight that chokes,
With a firm grip begging for release into the peace

Of death.

More scars to carry forward and harm the flesh
That traps what could have been beautiful,

Had he just bled the toxins that poisoned his mind
Against the dreams that raised him to be more.

Failure is his greatest fear.

For fatherhood has now grasped this broken man,
And the blood now flows to them by association,

Repeating the same mistakes that led him to bleed,
Expecting family to be the boon that heals all,

A purpose not his own to selfishly inflict on innocents,
Too pure for a world of pain, hate, and ugliness,

Unaware that beauty can exist in a damaged man,
And that love can heal all if shared honestly.

A two-way street that begs him to traverse it,
Opening up and allowing light and beauty to shine,

The way to loving himself,

And forgiving the corruption he allowed to rest
Within the center of his chest.

I can love myself.
I am beautiful.
I am not a waste.
I can be more.
I can get better

With time,

Then truly love those who have loved me in my absence.

—PERTINAX