'Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days
Where Destiny with Men for pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859) st. 49; 'But helpless pieces of the game he plays / Upon this chequerboard of nights and days; / Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, / And one by one back in the closet lays' in 4th ed., (1879) st. 69