If time and space, as sages say, Are things which cannot be, The sun which does not feel decay No greater is than we. So why, Love, should we ever pray To live a century? The butterfly that lives a day Has lived eternity.
T. S. EliotThink not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.
T. S. EliotThe majority of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives the majority of human passions.
T. S. EliotNow that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands"; (slowly twisting the lilac stalks) "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see." I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea.
T. S. Eliot