Re: Have you always dreamed of become a high payed consultant?

[Robert Graham <address@hidden>]

Peter E. C. Dashwood wrote:
> Robert Graham <rgraham2@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
> 3DE4C833.7000300@nycap.rr.com">news:3DE4C833.7000300@nycap.rr.com...
> 
>>I like a Scottish proverb which
>>says something like "The moving hand, having writ, moves on
>>never to return."
> 
> 
> Arrrghhhh! No, I simply can't stand to see one of my favourite pieces
> mis-quoted and claimed for Scotland...<G>
> 
> The quotation comes from "The Rubaiat of Omar Khyaam" and was written around
> 400 years ago (I think...it's late and I am too tired to check the
> reference) by an uneducated Arab tent maker  named Omar Khyaam (As far as I
> know, he never visited Scotland...<G>)
> 
> "The moving finger writes
>   And, having writ,
>   Moves on.
>   Nor all your piety or wit
>   Shall lure it back to cancel half a line.
>   Nor all your tears
>   Wash out a word of it."
> 
> The translation into English was done by Richard Burton, the famous explorer
> who competed with Speke to find the source of the Nile in the 19th Century.
> 
> If you like Omar's thoughts on the inevitability of the passage of Time, you
> might enjoy his description of morning...(another of my favourites <G>)
> 
> "Awake!
>  For morning in the bowl of night
>  Has flung the stone
>  that puts the stars to flight. (the Sun...)
> And Lo!
> The hunter of the East (Sun again)
> Has caught the Sultan's turret (the Sky)
> In a noose of light."
> 
> I make no apology whatsoever for the above off-topic and totally irrelevant
> post. When you look at the drivel that gets posted here, it is about time
> the quality of the drivel was raised a bit...<G>
> 
> Pete


Well, Pete, I quoted it based upon the memory of a book 
about Edenburgh that my mother had.  It has also been a long 
time since I read the Rubaiyat.  Two of my favorite parts are:

(This one is perhaps the most well known?)

A book of verses underneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread - and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness -
Oh, wilderness were Paradise now!
  (Stanza XII - Fitzgerald Version)

My personal favorite is this:

Today is thine to spend, but not tomorrow,
Counting on 'morrows breedeth naught but sorrow;
Oh! Squander not this breath that Heaven hath lent thee,
Nor make too sure another breath to borrow!
   (Stanza XVIII - Whinfield Version)

However, when it comes to programming by imperfect 
programmers, one can only hope that the manager remembers 
that "Mercy was made for sinners" (Stanza XXVII, Whinfield 
Version).

All my programs are not works of poetry, but I try! :)