Poets across the ages have pondered life, love, death and the all around joy and pain of living. They've included luck in their pondering. Here are some thoughts on luck taken from poems and a name or two you will surely recognize. This will be part of a series of articles of luck and fortune quotes from literature and poetry.

The sentiment in this short piece by 19th century American poet, Emily Dickinson, is a common one—that sometimes what seems like luck is really the fruits of our labor coming into full view.

"Luck is not chance
It's Toil
Fortune's expensive smile
Is earned
The Father of the Mine
Is that old-fashioned coin
We spurned."

Edgar Albert Guest was a Detroit Free Press journalist who started as a copy boy for the paper in 1895. He went on to enjoy a long writing career including publishing humor and poetry. This excerpt is from his poem, Hard Luck where he reminds the reader that bad luck happens to everyone.

Ain't no use as I can see
In sittin' underneath a tree
An' growlin that your luck is bad,
An, that your life is extry sad;

You can find the full text at the Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173577).

William Shakespeare, the master story teller of English literature, was not only famous for his plays but also his sonnets. In Sonnet 29, he tells us that though his fortunes are low love reminds him how lucky he really is.

"When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee--and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

Read more luck quotes in my article with some great one liners and more from figures ranging from ancient poets to country stars.