Quote#Wisdom
Thus when a barber and collier fight
Quote byChristopher Smart · 1722–1771
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "Soliloquy of the Princess Periwinkle" in A Trip to Cambridge, or the Grateful Fair, acted during the summer of 1747; printed in Campbell's Specimens of the British Poets, vol. 6 (London: John Murray, 1819) p. 185.
English (original)
Thus when a barber and collier fight, The barber beats the luckless collier—white; The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack, And, big with vengeance, beats the barber—black. In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o’erspread, And beats the collier and the barber—red; Black, red, and white, in various clouds are toss’d, And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost.
— Christopher Smart
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Behind him came Health from her cottage of thatch, Where never physician had lifted the latch.
Too hard for any frog's digestion, To have his froghood call'd in question!
For the flower glorifies God and the root parries the adversary. For the flowers have their angels even the words of God's Creation.