But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Checker-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

Omar Khayyám (1048-1123) Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer

Rubáiyát, 51 [tr. FitzGerald, 1st ed. (1859)]