Then blessings on thee, my afternoon torpor Thou makest a prince of a mental porpor.

Middle-aged life is merry, and I love to lead it.

The codfish is a staple food For which I'm seldom in the mood. This fish is such an utter loss That people eat it with egg sauce.

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.

The reason for much matrimony is patrimony.

I'm like a backward berry, Unripened on the vine, For all my friends are fifty, And I'm only forty-nine.

Tonight's December thirty-first, something is about to burst. The clock is crouching, dark and small, like a time bomb in the hall. Hark, it's midnight, children dear. Duck! Here comes another year!