Prologue to a Drama (the King speaks)

The law of all coincidence is strange,
If law there be. Man cannot cut and prune
And shape in figures of meticulous thought
What Nature does, or all that comes to pass
Upon this earth. He thinks he can, and some
Phenomena obey his laws; but this,
Coincidence, is one that baffles all!
I see a face I never saw before
In all my life, yet twice again that face
Has come before my eyes after the first
Encounter. I hear an uncommon word,
And twice since then that word has struck my ears!
Is there a law? Can man account for this?
But yesternight dear Marcus took his life,
An action ne’er before come close to me,
An alien thing to me was suicide.
Again today by his own hand hath died
My faithful minister. Tomorrow – what?
Is this coincidence, or some foul plot?

1924