on thy back,
Neither can you crack a nut.

Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882]

WOMAN'S WILL

That man's a fool who tries by art and skill
To stem the torrent of a woman's will:
For if she will, she will; you may depend on't--
And if she won't, she won't--and there's an end on't.

Unknown

WOMAN'S WILL

Men, dying, make their wills, but wives
Escape a task so sad;
Why should they make what all their lives
The gentle dames have had?

John Godfrey Saxe [1816-1887]

PLAYS

Alas, how soon the hours are over
Counted us out to play the lover!
And how much narrower is the stage
Allotted us to play the sage!

But when we play the fool, how wide
The theatre expands! beside,
How long the audience sits before us!
How many prompters! what a chorus!

Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]

THE REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE

I sent for Ratcliffe; was so ill,
That other doctors gave me over:
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill,
And I was likely to recover.

But, when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warmed the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician.

Matthew Prior [1664-1721]

THE NET OF LAW

The net of law is spread so wide,
No sinner from its sweep may hide.

Its meshes are so fine and strong,
They take in every child of wrong.

O wondrous web of mystery!
Big fish alone escape from thee!

James Jeffrey Roche [1847-1908]

COLOGNE

In Koln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fanged with murderous stones,
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks!
Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834]

EPITAPH ON CHARLES II

Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King,
Whose word no man relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.

John Wilmot [1647-1680]

CERTAIN MAXIMS OF HAFIZ

I
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me today!"

II
Yea, though a Kaffir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent per annu