Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things

To low ambition and the pride of kings.

Let us (since life can little more supply

Than just to look about us, and to die)

Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;

A mighty maze! but not without a plan.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 1.

Because the good old rule

Sufficeth them,—the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Rob Roy's Grave.