Scorpio Quotes

I say, 'I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick.' Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, 'It's late for that, Puck.

There are moments that you'll remember for the rest of your life and there are moments that you think you'll remember for the rest of your life, and it's not often they turn out to be the same moment.

He is slow, and the sea sings to us both, but he returns to me.

It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.

I hear laughter and someone asks if I need help, not in a nice way. I snarl, 'What I need is for your mother to have thought a little harder nine months before your birthday.

It's easy to convince men to love you, Puck. All you have to do is be a mountain they have to climb or a poem they don't understand.

Does anyone ask you why you stay, Sean Kendrick?" "They do." "And why do you?" "The sky and the sand and the sea and Corr.

You two are a strange pair. You are a pair, aren't you?" "We're in training.

I am so, so alive.

Do you know how to wrap a leg?' 'I was born wrapping legs,' I say stiffly, because I'm insulted. 'Must've been a challenging delivery,' Sean notes.

Clutter is my natural habitat.

In the middle of all this, as Sean slips out of his jacket, he looks over his shoulder at me and he smiles at me, just a glancing, faint thing before he turns back to Tommy. I'm quite happy for that smile, because Dad told me once you should be grateful for the gifts that are the rarest.

Shhhhhh, shhhhhh, says the sea, but I don't believe her.

That's a poor match, Sean Kendrick," says a voice at my elbow. It's the other sister from Fathom & Sons, and she follows my gaze to Puck. "Neither of you are a housewife." I don't look away from Puck. "I think you assume too much, Dory Maud." "You leave nothing to assumption," Dory Maud says. "You swallow her with your eyes. I'm surprised there's any of her left for the rest of us to see.

Boys,' she says, 'just aren't very good at being afraid.

I think every now and then about Sean’s thumb pressed against my wrist and daydream about him touching me again. But mostly I think about the way he looks at me – with respect – and I think that’s probably worth more than anything.

My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar.

They're saying that you and Sean Kendrick were burning up the cliffs." Tommy spins me again and grins at me. "And when I say you and Sean Kendrick, I mean you and Sean Kendrick. And by burning, I mean burning.

I didn't know," I start truthfully, "that it was the hard way when I started on it.

And I told you before, I'll sell you any of the thoroughbreds.” “I didn't make any of those thoroughbreds. I didn't make them what they are.” “You made all of them what they are.” I don't look at him. “None of them made me who I am.

Could others hold him?" His face remains the same. "There are no others. You're the only one." I swallow. "I can hold him.

Neatness makes me feel like I have to be on my best behavior. Clutter is my natural habitat.

Sean reaches between us and slides a thin bracelet of red ribbons over my free hand. Lifting my arm, he presses his lips against the inside of my wrist. I'm utterly still; I feel my pulse tap several times against his lips, and then he releases my hand. "For luck," he says. He takes Dove's lead from me. "Sean," I say, and he turns. I take his chin and kiss his lips, hard. I'm reminded, all of a sudden, of that first day on the beach, when I pulled his head from the water. "For luck," I say to his startled face.

I didn't say I would start a yard." "You didn't have to. I'll come back next year and you'll have a nest of horses outside your window and Puck Connolly in your bed and I'll buy from you instead of Malvern. That's your future for you.

Tell me what it's like. The race." "What it's like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It's the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It's speed, if you're lucky. It's life and it's death or it's both, and there's nothing like it.

Tell me what to wish for." Tell me what to ask the sea for." "To be happy. Happiness." "I don't think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don't know how you would keep it." "You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn't that what you said?" "That's what I said. What do I need to hear?" "That tomorrow we'll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I'll save the house and you'll have your stallion. Dove will eat golden oats for the rest of her days and you will terrorize the races each year and people will come from every island in the world to find out how it is you get horses to listen to you. The piebald will carry Mutt Malvern into the sea and Gabriel will decide to stay on the island. I will have a farm and you will bring me bread for dinner." "That's what I needed to hear.

It's easy to convince men to love you, Puck. All you have to do is be a mountain they have to climb or a poem they don't understand. Something that makes them feel strong or clever. It's why they love the ocean.

Mum liked to say that some things happen for a reason, that sometimes obstacles were there to stop you from doing something stupid.

It's astrology, and it totally makes sense!" Maritza continued. "His big, obnoxious Scorpio energy is invading your cozy Cancer safe space!

I lost a horse today.' 'That sounds careless. What happened?' 'She jumped off a cliff.' 'A cliff! Is that normal?

It's for personal reasons," I say stiffly, which is what my mother had always told me to say about things that had to do with fighting with your brothers, getting any sort of illness that had intestinal ramifications, starting your period, and money.

The truth is, until you know any different, the island is enough. Actually, I know different. And it's still enough.

I might never ride Corr again. I don't know who I am without him.

I try very hard to keep my eyes from darting to Sean because I'm quite certain that no one will be able to miss how I look at him and how I find him looking back.

You leave nothing to assumption," Dory Maud says. "You swallow her with your eyes. I'm surprised there's any of her left for the rest of us to see.

I whisper like the sea in the horse's ear.

All of them are men, not a girl amongst them unless you count Tommy Falk because his lips are so pretty.

Mum once told Dad that vices are only vices when looked at through the frame of society.

There are too many people on horseback today trying to prove themselves, trying to prepare, trying to get faster. They haven't discovered yet that it's not the fastest who make it to race day. You only have to be the fastest of those who are left.

I stare at him. "You can't risk not winning. Not because of me." Sean doesn't lift his eyes from the counter. "We make our move when you make yours. You on the inside, me on the outside. Corr can come from the middle of the pack; he's done it before. It's one side you won't have to worry about." I say, "I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick." Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, "It's late for that, Puck.

You made this?' Finn looks at me. 'No, Saint Anthony brought it to me in the night. He was very put out I didn't give it to you right then.

I'm quite happy for that smile, because Dad told me once you should be grateful for the gifts that are the rarest.

I believe in the same thing they believe in,' I say, with a jerk of my chin toward town and St. Columba’s. 'I just don't believe you can find it in a building.

One of the lines in Finn's code is that you're not to say anything about Finn being attractive to the opposite sex. I'm not sure which exact statue governs this, but it's closely related to the one that won't let you thank him. Something about compliments and Finn don't work.

Thanks,” I say, and Finn looks uncomfortable. Mum used to say he was like a faerie; he didn't like to be thanked. I add, “Sorry.

Did no one tell him that pain lives in this sand, dug in and watered with our blood?

What I need is for your mother to have thought a little harder nine months before your birthday.

Although every Water sign has a strong intuition, Pisces’s and Scorpio’s is exceptional

Good morning. You have a moment?" It's clever the way she says it, not as a question. I would have to contradict her in order to have my moment back. I make a note to use the method in the future.

Dory is what Mum used to call a "strong-looking woman," which means that, from the back, she looked like a man, and, from the front, you preferred the back

I don't trust the ocean, either; it would kill me as soon as not. It doesn't mean I'm afraid of it.

We are shoulder to shoulder due to the size of the cab, and if Gratton is made of flour and potatoes, Sean is made of stone and driftwood and possibly those prickly anemones that sometimes wash up on shore.

I’d always thought I was above being fascinated by anyone but myself.

There doesn't seem like there should be an artful way to butcher a cow, but there is, and this is not it.

I try to think of something catchy to say, but there's nothing but irritation that something that was funny yo an eleven-year-old boy is still funny to a seventeen-year-old one.

She doesn't know any better, what a girl like her needs is a man with both his legs on the land. A man who will hold her down so that she doesn't fly away. She doesn't know yet that someone like you looks better on the shelf than in your hand.

I think of Sean folded low over the red stallion, riding bareback at the top of the cliffs. Of the easy way they had with each other when I met him to look at the uisce mare. I think, even, of the way Sean looked when he stood on the bloody festival rock and said his name, and then Corr's, like it was just one fact after the other. Of the way he said "the sky and the sand and the sea and Corr" to me. And I feel a bite of unfairness, because in everything but name, it seems to me that Sean Kendrick already owns Corr.

Sean, as always, gets by on one word while everyone else needs five or six.

It's a strange thing, to be talked about instead of talked to.

I feel a strange, fierce squeeze in my heart when I see him, like pride, although there's nothing about Sean that I can take credit for.

The piebald mare paws at the sand; I see her digging out of the corner of my eye and hear her grinding her teeth. That bridle's her curse, this island her prison. She still smells of rot.

I don't think I'd like to argue with you," I say. "I think it would be a very dissatisfying pastime.

This is about as comforting as a cold brick when you're lonely.

I think that’s a mercy of this island, actually, that it won’t give us our terrible memories for long, but let us keep the good ones for as long as we want them.

This time of year, I live and breathe the beach. My cheeks feel raw with the wind throwing sand against them. My thighs sting from the friction of the saddle. My arms ache from holding up two thousand pounds of horse. I have forgotten what it is like to be warm and what a full night’s sleep feels like and what my name sounds like spoken instead of shouted across yards of sand. I am so, so alive.

As the sun shines low and red across the water, I wade into the ocean. The water is still high and brown and murky with the memory of the storm, so if there’s something below it, I won’t know it. But that’s part of this, the not knowing. The surrender to the possibilities beneath the surface. It wasn’t the ocean that killed my father, in the end. The water is so cold that my feet go numb almost at once. I stretch my arms out to either side of me and close my eyes. I listen to the sound of water hitting water. The raucous cries of the terns and the guillemots in the rocks of the shore, the piercing, hoarse questions of the gulls above me. I smell seaweed and fish and the dusky scent of the nesting birds onshore. Salt coats my lips, crusts my eyelashes. I feel the cold press against my body. The sand shifts and sucks out from under my feet in the tide. I’m perfectly still. The sun is red behind my eyelids. The ocean will not shift me and the cold will not take me.

Happiness isn't something this island yields easily; the ground is too rocky and the sun too sparse for it to flourish.

It's less about wanting and more about being.

When you traffic in monsters, that's the risk you run, that you'll find one too monstrous to stomach.

Two thousand years ago the night sky looked completely different, and so when you get right down to it, the Greek conceptions of star signs as related to birth dates are grossly inaccurate for today's day and age. It's called the Line of Procession: back then the sun didn't set in Taurus, but in Gemini. A September 24 birthday didn't mean you were a Libra, but a Virgo. And there was a thirteenth zodiac constellation, Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, which rose between Sagittarius and Scorpio for only four days. The reason it's all off kilter? The earth's axis wobbles. Life isn't nearly as stable as we want it to be.

Do you think I just turn my secrets out for everyone?" He is unfazed. "I didn't know they were secrets," he says. "Or I wouldn't have asked.

Sean takes my ponytail in his hand, his fingers touching my neck, and then he tucks my hair into my collar out of the reach of the wind. He avoids my gaze. Then he links his arm back around me and pushes his calf into Corr's side.

Corr stood here," Sean says wonderingly. "I would've died. He didn't have to stay." For a moment, I see that it doesn't matter that he didn't win. The fact of Corr's loyalty is a bigger thing than the ownership of him.

She had a short fuse this morning, because it was a day that ended with y, you see.

His wife's a brand of Christian that forbids a gathering that involves young women dancing in the streets but not races where men die

I know not to trust anyone," I say. "Except..." Holly studies my face. "You do fancy him, don't you? What a strange, wonderful, repressed place this is.

You swallow her with your eyes. I’m surprised there’s any of her left for the rest of us to see.

Sean reaches out between us and takes my wrist. He press his thumb on my pulse. My heartbeat trips and surges against his skin. I'm pinned by his touch, a sort of fearful magic. We stand and stand, and I wait for my pulse against his finger to slow, but it doesn't Finally, he releases my wrist and says," I'll see you on the cliffs tomorrow.

The walls of the arch are covered with blood-red jellies that wink and glisten at me by the light of the moon. My father told me they were completely harmless. I don't believe him. Nothing is completely harmless.

...beer makes people deaf...

With his back to us, Sean tugs the halter from the mare's head. She kicks out, but he steps out of the way as if it were nothing at all. With a shake of her mane, she leaps mightily into the water. For a moment she struggles over the waves, and then she is swimming. Just a wild black horse in a deep blue sea full of the ashes of other dead boys.

Sean settles swiftly behind me, and I'm startled by the sudden closeness of him, my back suddenly warm against his chest, the press of his hips on against me. i turn to ask him a question, and he jerks his face away from the proximity of mine. I say, "Oh. Sorry.

Once upon a time, this moment - this last light of the evening the day before the race - was the best moment of the year for me. The anticipation of the game to come. But that was when all I had to lose was my life.

He was dead before. He knew it, didn't you see it in his eyes? My jacket." "Your jacket?" I say, with enough force that my shaky voice makes Corr start. "How about 'my jacket, please.' " Sean Kendrick looks at me, perplexed, and I can see he hasn't a clue of why I'm upset with him. Why I'm upset at all. I can't stop shaking, as if I've taken all of Corr's trembling and made it my own. "That's what I said," he says after a pause. "No, it's not." "What did I say?" "You said my jacket." Sean looks a little bewildered now. "That's what I said I said.

It's okay," Puck says. She has a quick way of hiding her disappointment. If you're not looking for it, she's put it away somewhere before you know it was there. "You're busy." "No," I tell her. "No, I'll think about it. I'm not sure if I can get away." I don't know wheat I'm thinking. I cannot find the time to get away. I'm not a good dinner companion. But it's hard to think of that. Instead I'm wishing that I'd spoken sooner, before I'd seen her disappointment.

From Jess: FANG. I've commented your blog with my questions for THREE YEARS. You answer other people's STUPID questions but not MINE. YOU REALLY ASKED FOR IT, BUDDY. I'm just gonna comment with this until you answer at least one of my questions. DO YOU HAVE A JAMAICAN ACCENT? No, Mon DO YOU MOLT? Gross. WHAT'S YOUR STAR SIGN? Dont know. "Angel what's my star sign?" She says Scorpio. HAVE YOU TOLD JEB I LOVE HIM YET? No. DOES NOT HAVING A POWER MAKE YOU ANGRY? Well, that's not really true... DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Can you see me doing the Soulja Boy? DOES IGGY KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Gazzy does. DO YOU USE HAIR PRODUCTS? No. Again,no. DO YOU USE PRODUCTS ON YOUR FEATHERS? I don't know that they make bird kid feather products yet. WHAT'S YOU FAVORITE MOVIE? There are a bunch WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SONG? I don't have favorites. They're too polarizing. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SMELL? Max, when she showers. DO THESE QUESTIONS MAKE YOU ANGRY? Not really. IF I CAME UP TO YOU IN A STREET AND HUGGED YOU, WOULD YOU KILL ME? You might get kicked. But I'm used to people wanting me dead, so. DO YOU SECRETLY WANT TO BE HUGGED? Doesn't everybody? ARE YOU GOING EMO 'CAUSE ANGEL IS STEALING EVERYONE'S POWERS (INCLUDING YOURS)? Not the emo thing again. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Anything hot and delicious and brought to me by Iggy. WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? Three eggs, over easy. Bacon. More Bacon. Toast. DID YOU EVEN HAVE BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? See above. DID YOU DIE INSIDE WHEN MAX CHOSE ARI OVER YOU? Dudes don't die inside. DO YOU LIKE MAX? Duh. DO YOU LIKE ME? I think you're funny. DOES IGGY LIKE ME? Sure DO YOU WRITE DEPRESSING POETRY? No. IS IT ABOUT MAX? Ahh. No. IS IT ABOUT ARI? Why do you assume I write depressing poetry? IS IT ABOUT JEB? Ahh. ARE YOU GOING TO BLOCK THIS COMMENT? Clearly, no. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING? A Dirty Projectors T-shirt. Jeans. DO YOU WEAR BOXERS OR BRIEFS? No freaking comment. DO YOU FIND THIS COMMENT PERSONAL? Could I not find that comment personal? DO YOU WEAR SUNGLASSES? Yes, cheap ones. DO YOU WEAR YOUR SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT? That would make it hard to see. DO YOU SMOKE APPLES, LIKE US? Huh? DO YOU PREFER BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? Whatever. DO YOU LIKE VAMPIRES OR WEREWOLVES? Fanged creatures rock. ARE YOU GAY AND JUST PRETENDING TO BE STRAIGHT BY KISSING LISSA? Uhh... WERE YOU EXPERIMENING WITH YOUR SEXUALITY? Uhh... WOULD YOU TELL US IF YOU WERE GAY? Yes. DO YOU SECRETLY LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE CALL YOU EMO? No. ARE YOU EMO? Whatever. DO YOU LIKE EGGS? Yes. I had them for breakfast. DO YOU LIKE EATING THINGS? I love eating. I list it as a hobby. DO YOU SECRETLY THINK YOU'RE THE SEXIEST PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD? Do you secretly think I'm the sexiest person in the whole world? DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHTS ABOUT MAX? Eeek! HAS ENGEL EVER READ YOUR MIND WHEN YOU WERE HAVING DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT MAX AND GONE "OMG" AND YOU WERE LIKE "D:"? hahahahahahahahahahah DO YOU LIKE SPONGEBOB? He's okay, I guess. DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT SPONGEBOB? Definitely CAN YOU COOK? Iggy cooks. DO YOU LIKE TO COOK? I like to eat. ARE YOU, LIKE, A HOUSEWIFE? How on earth could I be like a housewife? DO YOU SECRETLY HAVE INNER TURMOIL? Isn't it obvious? DO YOU WANT TO BE UNDA DA SEA? I'm unda da stars. DO YOU THINK IT'S NOT TOO LATE, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE? Sure. WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO PLAY POKER? TV. DO YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Totally. OF COURSE YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE. DOES IGGY HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Yes. CAN HE EVEN PLAY POKER? Iggy beats me sometimes. DO YOU LIKE POKING PEOPLE HARD? Not really. ARE YOU FANGALICIOUS? I could never be as fangalicious as you'd want me to be. Fly on, Fang

I can see her clearly, standing on the rock beside Peg Gratton, unflinching before Eaton and the rest of the race committee. I can't remember when I've been that brave, and it shames me. The truth is, I feel myself being fascinated and repelled by her; She's both a mirror of myself and a door to part of the island that i'm not. It's like when the mare goddess looked into my eye; I felt that there was a part of myself that I didn't know.

I can't really believe that it's over. "I'll speak for her." Every face turns to where Sean Kendrick stands a little apart from the crowd, his arms crossed. "This island runs on courage, not blood," he says. His face is turned towards me, but his eyes are on Eaton and his groups. In the hush after he speaks, I can hear my heart thudding in my ears.

Gabe brings home a chicken and Tommy Falk for dinner. Truth be told, I'm not unhappy to see any of them. Gabe, because it's been so long since we've had dinner with him; the chicken because it's not beans; and Tommy Falk because his presence makes Gabe cheerful and goofy.

I don't know if I'd want to be comforted, if I'm being honest. If I'm being forced to eat soot, I want to know that somewhere else in the world, someone else has to eat soot as well. I want to know that soot tastes terrible. I don't want to be told that soot's good for the digestion. And of course, by soot, I mean beans.

One day, she would live someplace where she could stand outside her house and see only stars, no streetlights, where she could feel as close as she ever got to sharing her mother’s gift. When she looked at the stars, something tugged at her, something that urged her to see more than stars, to make sense of the chaotic firmament, to pull an image from it. But it never made sense. She only ever saw Leo and Cepheus, Scorpio and Draco. Maybe she just needed more horizon and less city. The only thing was, she didn’t really want to see the future. What she wanted was to see something no one else could see or would see, and maybe that was asking for more magic than was in the world.

There is a little narrowing to his eyes at the end of it that makes me understand that this is a test. Whether or not I'm brave enough to go into the stall with Corr after yesterday morning, after I've had time to think about what happened. The thought of it makes my pulse trip. The question is not if I trust Corr. The question is if I trust Sean.

There's a tap on the door then. We all exchange looks, Tommy Falk's as uncertain as the rest of ours. No one moves, so I finally wipe my hands off on my pants, go to the door, and open it a crack. Sean stands on the other side, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other holding a loaf of bread. I wasn't prepared for it to be Sean, so my stomach does a neat little trick that feels like either hunger or escaping.

My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar." When Dad was in one of his rare, fanciful moods, he told guests that the pixies left me on the doorstep because I bit their fingers too often. My favorite was always when Mum said that before I was born, it rained for seven days and seven nights solid, and when she went out into the yard to ask the sky what it was weeping for, I dropped out of the clouds at her feet and the sun came out. I always liked the idea of being such a bother that I affected even the weather.

Make sure the seaweed lies flat.' 'Okay.' 'Leave an inch below the knee.' 'Okay.' 'It's got to be loose enough to put a finger in the top.' 'Sean Kendrick.' I say it emphatically enough that the stallion's ears prick toward me. (...) Sean doesn't appear to be at all apologetic. 'I think you'd better let me do that after all.' 'You're the one who had me in here in the first place.' I say. 'Now I think it's you who doesn't trust me.' 'It's not just you,' He replies. I glower at him. 'Well, I'll tell you what. I'll hold him and you wrap. That way, when it's done wrong, there's only yourself to slap. And take your jacket. I'm tired of holding it.

I open the door wide to reveal the answer. They all look at Sean standing there with his hands in his pocket and the other hand around loaf of bread and it occurs to me all in a rush as they stare at him that Sean looks a little, just a little, like he's courting. I don't have time to explain the truth of it before Tommy laughs and jumps to his feet. "Sean Kendrick, the devil. How are you?

Where will you and Corr be?" I ask. Sean presses two fingers along the edge of the counter sweeping crumbs into a pile. I notice that his fingers are permanently dirt-stained like mine. He says," Right next to you and Dove." I stare at him. "You can't risk not winning. Not because of me." Sean doesn't lift his eye from the counter. "We make our move when you make yours. You on the inside, me on the outside. Corr can come from the middle of the pack; he's done it before. It's one side you don't have to worry about.

Sean pushes up to his feet and stands there. I look at his dirty boots. Now I've offended him, I think. He says, "Other people have never been important to me, Kate Connolly. Puck Connolly." I tip my face up to look at him, finally. The blanket falls off my shoulders, and my hat, too, loosened by the wind. I can't read his expression--his narrow eyes make it difficult. I say, "And now?" Kendrick reaches to turn up the collar on his jacket. He doesn't smile, but he's not as close to frowning as usual. "Thanks for the cake.

I'm already waiting when Puck gets to the top of the cliffs. I'm not the only one; about two dozen race tourists have made perches out of rocks, watching Corr and me as closely as they dare. Puck glares at them all, searing enough that some of them flinch in surprise. I'm not certain what to expect from her after last night. I don't know how to address her. I don't know what she expects from me or what I expect from me. What I get is a wordless hello and a November cake in my hand.

Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look, you Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.