I gotta use words to talk to you. - T. S. Eliot

"Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria's accession.
Old Deuteronomy's buried nine wives
And more – I am tempted to say, ninety-nine;
And his numerous progeny prospers and thrives
And the village is proud of him in his decline.
At the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy,
When he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,
The Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well, of all …
Things … Can it be … really! … No! … Yes! …
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My mind may be wandering, but I confess
I believe it is Old Deuteronomy!"

Old Deuteronomy sits in the street,
He sits in the High Street on market day;
The bullocks may bellow, the sheep they may bleat,
But the dogs and the herdsman will turn them away.
The cars and the lorries run over the kerb,
And the villagers put up a notice: ROAD CLOSED — So that nothing untoward may chance to disturb
Deuteronomy's rest when he feels so disposed
Or when he's engaged in domestic economy:
And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well of all …
Things … Can it be … really! … No! … Yes! …
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My sight's unreliable, but I can guess
That the cause of the trouble is Old Deuteronomy!

And the wind shall say: "Here were decent godless people: Their only monument the asphalt road And a thousand lost golf balls."

If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph.