All I've got is cake, some Emily Dickinson (who loved to bake them) and some Lord Byron (who loved another kind of cake)

Love's oven is warm

Emily Dickinson

 (from one of her letters)

from Don Juan, Canto 1, Stanzas 60-63

60

Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes)

   Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire

Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise

   Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire,

And love than either; and there would arise

   A something in them which was not desire,

But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul

Which struggled through and chasten'd down the whole.

61

Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow

   Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth;

Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow,

   Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,

Mounting at times to a transparent glow,

   As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth,

Possess'd an air and grace by no means common:

Her stature tall—I hate a dumpy woman.

62

Wedded she was some years, and to a man

   Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;

And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE

   'Twere better to have TWO of five-and-twenty,

Especially in countries near the sun:

   And now I think on't, 'mi vien in mente,'

Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue

Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.

63

'Tis a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,

   And all the fault of that indecent sun,

Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,

   But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,

That howsoever people fast and pray,

   The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone:

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,

Is much more common where the climate 's sultry.

Turn back regards

Yosemite, 2012

from Don Juan

Canto XIV

The world is all before me—or behind;
       For I have seen a portion of that same,
And quite enough for me to keep in mind;—
       Of passions, too, I have proved enough to blame,
To the great pleasure of our friends, mankind,
       Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame;
For I was rather famous in my time,
Until I fairly knock'd it up with rhyme.

I have brought this world about my ears, and eke
       The other; that's to say, the clergy, who
Upon my head have bid their thunders break
        In pious libels by no means a few.
And yet I can't help scribbling once a week,
        Tiring old readers, nor discovering new.
In youth I wrote because my mind was full,
And now because I feel it growing dull.

But 'why then publish?'—There are no rewards
        Of fame or profit when the world grows weary.
I ask in turn,—Why do you play at cards?
        Why drink? Why read?—To make some hour less dreary.
It occupies me to turn back regards
        On what I've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery;
And what I write I cast upon the stream,
To swim or sink—I have had at least my dream.

George Gordon, Lord Byron
(1788-1824)