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It ends not with a bang, but a whimper.
T. S. Eliot

XLV



The other two, slight air, and purging fire

Are both with thee, wherever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone

Sinks down to death, oppress\'d with melancholy;

Until life\'s composition be recur\'d

By those swift messengers return\'d from thee,

Who even but now come back again, assur\'d,

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

  This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

  I send them back again, and straight grow sad.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXIV



Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o\'ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

\'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak,

That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:

The offender\'s sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence\'s cross. 

  Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

  And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

 	--William Shakespeare

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by
peaceful means.
Ronald Reagan