Gardening has compensations out of all proportion to its goals. It is creation in the pure sense.

Stir the eggnog, lift the toddy, Happy New Year everybody.

Tomorrow will come and today will pass, / But the hearts of the young are brittle as glass.

Say what you will, making marriage work is a woman's business. The institution was invented to do her homage; it was contrived for her protection. Unless she accepts it as such --as a beautiful, bountiful, but quite unequal association --the going will be hard indeed.

Meek-eyed parents hasten down the ramps To greet their offspring, terrible from camps.

Relations are errors that Nature makes. / Your spouse you can put on the shelf. / But your friends, dear friends, are the quaint mistakes / You always commit yourself.

Scratch any father, you find / Someone chock-full of qualms and romantic terrors, / Believing change is a threat.