24 Quotes Tagged: transience

How frail the bloom, how short the stay
That terminates us all!
Today we flourish green and gay,
Like leaves tomorrow fall.

Nicht an die Güter hänge dein Herz,
Die das Leben vergänglich zieren!
Wer besitzt, der lerne verlieren,
Wer im Glück ist, der lerne den Schmerz!

We have made our mark on the world, but we have really done nothing that the trees and creeping plants, ice and erosion, cannot remove in a fairly short time.

The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.

And so castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually.

I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.

I could have had different
ancestors, after all.
I could have fluttered
from another nest
or crawled bescaled
from under another tree.

Nature's wardrobe
holds a fair supply of costumes:
spider, seagull, field mouse.
Each fits perfectly right off
and is dutifully worn
into shreds.

No permanence is ours; we are a wave
That flows to fit whatever form it finds:
Through night or day, cathedral or the cave
We pass forever, craving form that binds.

"La beauté qui parle aux yeux, reprit-elle, n’est que le prestige d’un moment; l’œuil du corps n'est pas toujours celui de l'âme."

("The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes," she continued, "is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.")

[Le beau Laurence]

Look at her, touching his cheek
to make a truce, her fingers
cool with spring rain;
in thin grass, bursts of purple crocus — even here, even at the beginning of love,
her hand leaving his face makes
an image of departure

and they think
they are free to overlook
this sadness.

I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.

Its funny when people recently change their attitude to gain entrance into your heart, which may only ignite your passion to close the door.

As wave is driven by wave
And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
Always, for ever and new. What was before
Is left behind; what never was is now;
And every passing moment is renewed.

Flowers, cold from the dew,
And autumn's approaching breath,
I pluck for the warm, luxuriant braids,
Which haven't faded yet.

In their nights, fragrantly resinous,
Entwined with delightful mystery,
They will breathe in her springlike
Extraordinary beauty.

But in a whirlwind of sound and fire,
From her shing head they will flutter
And fall—and before her
They will die, faintly fragrant still.

And, impelled by faithful longing,
My obedient gaze will feast upon them—
With a reverent hand,
Love will gather their rotting remains.

The theatre is certainly a place for learning about the brevity of human glory: oh all those wonderful glittering absolutely vanished pantomimes.

Let not thy heart cling to the things which for so short a time deck out thy life. Let him who has, learn to lose, and him who is happy, familiarise himself with what may give pain.