Linux Songs Poems

"No program is perfect,"
They said with a shrug.
"The customer's happy--
What's one little bug?"

But he was determined,                  Then change two, then three more,
The others went home.                   As year followed year.
He dug out the flow chart               And strangers would comment,
Deserted, alone.                        "Is that guy still here?"

Night passed into morning.              He died at the console
The room was cluttered                  Of hunger and thirst
With core dumps, source listings.       Next day he was buried
"I'm close," he muttered.               Face down, nine edge first.

Chain smoking, cold coffee,             And his wife through her tears
Logic, deduction.                       Accepted his fate.
"I've got it!" he cried,                Said "He's not really gone,
"Just change one instruction."          He's just working late."
                -- The Perfect Programmer

No rock so hard but that a little wave
May beat admission in a thousand years.
                -- Tennyson

No sooner had Edger Allen Poe
Finished his old Raven,
then he started his Old Crow.

No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government.
Always hopeful, yet discontent,
He knows changes aren't permanent -
But change is.

Nothing that's forced can ever be right,
If it doesn't come naturally, leave it.
That's what she said as she turned out the light,
And we bent our backs as slaves of the night,
Then she lowered her guard and showed me the scars
She got from trying to fight
Saying, oh, you'd better believe it.
[...]
Well nothing that's real is ever for free
And you just have to pay for it sometime.
She said it before, she said it to me,
I suppose she believed there was nothing to see,
But the same old four imaginary walls
She'd built for livin' inside
I said oh, you just can't mean it.
[...]
Well nothing that's forced can ever be right,
If it doesn't come naturally, leave it.
That's what she said as she turned out the light,
And she may have been wrong, and she may have been right,
But I woke with the frost, and noticed she'd lost
The veil that covered her eyes,
I said oh, you can leave it.
                -- Al Stewart, "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It"

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
                -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan"

Now I lay me back to sleep.
The speaker's dull; the subject's deep.
If he should stop before I wake,
Give me a nudge for goodness' sake.
                -- Anonymous

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the double lock will keep;
May no brick through the window break,
And, no one rob me till I awake.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I'll cry in anguish, "Mistake!!  Mistake!!"

Now I lay me down to study,
I pray the Lord I won't go nutty.
And if I fail to learn this junk,
I pray the Lord that I won't flunk.
But if I do, don't pity me at all,
Just lay my bones in the study hall.
Tell my teacher I've done my best,
Then pile my books upon my chest.