Ah! what is human life? How, like the dial's tardy-moving shade, Day after day slides from us unperceiv'd! The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth; Too subtle is the movement to be seen; Yet soon the hour is up--and we are gone.

Mine is the night, with all her stars.

Final Ruin fiercely drives Her ploughshare o'er creation.

All men think that all men are mortal but themselves.

But fate ordains that dearest friends must part.

Each moment has its sickle, emulous Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep Strikes empires from the root.

The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done