[Michael Cantor]

I'll bet you $100 or the Australian equivalent, Ross - loser to donate it to the Sphere - that you can't substantiate it's an Eleanor Roosevelt quote. You're a googling hot shot - why don't you google this and see what you find. What I find is no actual source or reference - just the attribution to Eleanor Roosevelt - and any number of posts indicating it's nonsense.

I assume it's been around for a while. Otherwise, it would mention Hillary.

[Maryann Corbett]

Here are two from Jan Schreiber's Pecadilloes:

The Angler

Pompous has found a worthy mark at last:
young and amazed, she dotes upon his airs,
swallowing lines he's practiced years to cast:
She strikes, he reels, as they go up the stairs.

The Crowd

They watched him drawn and quartered,
xxxxxthe wretched sinner,
and when they got back home
xxxxxsat down to dinner.

I'm editing back because I hesitate to post again when I've posted so much. Here's one of Dan Brown's little gems:

Epitaph for Deconstruction

A puff of wind that really shouldn't
Have blown so many so far astray--
And yet not anyone who wouldn't
Have come to nothing anyway.

[Roger Slater]

a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man
(e e cummings)

[Roger Slater]

EPIGRAM V
Baltasar de Alcazar

... Juana, what's behind
my torment? Only you.
My heartaches would be few
if you were less unkind.
... It doesn't seem absurd
for it to be inferred
your motive is my money.
If so, then kiss me, honey,
right on this poem's third word.




Original Spanish:

Juana, pues que no dais cabo
Al tormento en que me veis,
Y de ordinario volvéis
A mis lástimas el rabo,
Temo que queréis dinero;
Si es cierto lo que refiero,
Bien podéis de aquí adelante
Besarme en el consonante
Que tiene el verso primero.

[Ann Drysdale]

Here's one that has always meant a lot to me.

I said to Heart, 'How goes it?' Heart replied:
'Right as a Ribstone Pippin!' But it lied.

Hilaire Belloc

[Gregory Dowling]

Yes, I'm amazed that there's never been a thread on this topic before. Anyway, here are a couple of well-known ones by Auden:

Private faces in public places
Are wiser and nicer
Than public faces in private places.


Pick a quarrel, go to war,
Leave the hero in the bar;
Hunt the lion, climb the peak:
No one guesses you are weak.


And one of the best political epigrams of all time, from the Peasants' Revolt:

When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?

[Ann Drysdale]

And, speaking of Auden, I have called upon this at many a reading...

A poet's hope: to be,
like some valley cheese,
local, but prized elsewhere.

[David Rosenthal]

Bob, I am glad to see you are still hanging out with Salty Balty. That is if my assumption is correct that this is your own translation. I like what you've done with the final line.

David R.

[David Rosenthal]

Has anyone put this one in yet:



Oh God of dust and rainbows, help us see
that without dust the rainbow would not be.

-- Langston Hughes



David R.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Nope, hadn't heard that one, David. Good to see you here, btw!

Here are two by Robert Francis:

Prescription

Whoever would be clean
Of cluttering desire
Must scrap the golden mean
And bed with frost or fire.

Only two ways to cure
The old itching disease:
No middle temperature
But only burn or freeze.

Exemplary

They never ask for more
Or ever lose their poise
Never a slammed door
Never a needless noise.

For slander a deaf ear
So faultlessly well bred
Gossip they seldom hear
The deferential dead.