Before our lives divide for ever, While time is with us and hands are free, (Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever Hand from hand, as we stand by … - Algernon Charles Swinburne

Though they be Ill rulers of this household, be not thou Too swift to strike ere time be ripe to strike, Nor then by darkling stroke, against them: I Have erred, who thought by wrong to vanquish wrong, To smite by violence violence, and by night Put out the power of darkness: time shall bring A better way than mine, if God's will be — As how should God's will be not? — to redeem Venice. I was not worthy — nor may man, Till one as Christ shall come again, be found Worthy to think, speak, strike, foresee, foretell, The thought, the word, the stroke, the dawn, the day, That verily and indeed shall bid the dead Live, and this old dear land of all men's love Arise and shine for ever: but if Christ Came, haply such an one may come, and do With hands and heart as pure as his a work That priests themselves may mar not.

Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.