Swiftly the years, beyond recall.
Solemn the stillness of this spring morning.
— Reads the Arthur Waley translation of a Chinese fragment.
One man is born; another dies.
Being Euripides.
After death, nothing is.
Being Seneca.
The old man who will not laugh is a fool.
Said Santayana.
When Grandpa dies and his ashes are dropped into the ocean, may I have just a little bit of them? To put into something nice, so I can keep Grandpa with me for all time?
Pulvis et umbra sumus.
Quoth Horace. We are but dust and a shadow.
Dispraised, infirm, unfriended age.
Sophocles calls it.
Unregarded age in corners thrown.
Shakespeare echoes.
The worn copy of Donne’s verses, inked throughout with notes in Coleridge’s handwriting. And at the rear:
I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you will not be sorry that I bescribbled your book.
I am weary, Ananda, and wish to lie down.
Bhartrihari, fully fourteen hundred years ago, bemoaning the poverty of poets — in Sanskrit.
Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
Be patient now, my soul, thou hast endured worse than this.
Odysseus once says.
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?
Is it true then, what they say — that we become stars in the sky when we die?
Asks someone in Aristophanes.
Access to Roof for Emergency Only.
Alarm Will Sound if Door Opened.
Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.
The old man who will not laugh is a fool.
Als ick kan.