The Devil’s Dictionary (Chap. 25)

YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)

YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.

&nbspBut yesterday I should have thought me blest
&nbspTo stand high-pinnacled upon the peak
&nbspOf middle life and look adown the bleak
&nbspAnd unfamiliar foreslope to the West,
&nbspWhere solemn shadows all the land invest
&nbspAnd stilly voices, half-remembered, speak
&nbspUnfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak
&nbspThe haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.
&nbspYea, yesterday my soul was all aflame
&nbspTo stay the shadow on the dial's face
&nbspAt manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name
&nbspI chide aloud the little interspace
&nbspDisparting me from Certitude, and fain
&nbspWould know the dream and vision ne'er again.

Baruch Arnegriff

It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven doctors.

YOKE, n. An implement, madam, to whose Latin name, jugum, we owe one of the most illuminating words in our language—a word that defines the matrimonial situation with precision, point and poignancy. A thousand apologies for withholding it.

YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

&nbspYouth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth
&nbspagain, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with
&nbspwhistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and
&nbspcows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never
&nbspis heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and,
&nbsphowling, is cast into Baltimost!

Polydore Smith