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CXLVI



Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 

My sinful earth these rebel powers array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body\'s end?

Then soul, live thou upon thy servant\'s loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store;

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more:

  So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

  And Death once dead, there\'s no more dying then.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXIII



That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin\'d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see\'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death\'s second self, that seals up all in rest. 

In me thou see\'st the glowing of such fire,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,

Consum\'d with that which it was nourish\'d by.

  This thou perceiv\'st, which makes thy love more strong,

  To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

 	--William Shakespeare

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your
heart.
Marcus Aurelius 121-80 AD, Roman Emperor, Philosopher

CXXII



Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

Full character\'d with lasting memory,

Which shall above that idle rank remain,

Beyond all date; even to eternity:

Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart

Have faculty by nature to subsist;

Till each to raz\'d oblivion yield his part

Of thee, thy record never can be miss\'d.

That poor retention could not so much hold,

Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;

Therefore to give them from me was I bold,

To trust those tables that receive thee more:

  To keep an adjunct to remember thee

  Were to import forgetfulness in me.

 	--William Shakespeare