The transient nature of all material things and of all mortal fame is
exprest in this poem by Alfred Noyes:
No more, proud singers, boast no more!
Your high, immortal throne
Will scarce outlast a king’s!
Time is a sea that knows no shore
Wherein death idly flings
Your fame like some small pebble-stone
That sinks to rise no more.
Then boast no more, proud singers,
Your high immortal throne!
This earth, this little grain of dust
Drifting among the stars
With her invisible wars,
Her love, her hate, her lust;
This microscopic ball
Whereof you scan a part so small
Outlasts but little even your own dust.
Then boast no more, proud singers,
Your high immortal throne!
That golden spark of light must die
Which now you call your sun;
Soon will its race be run
Around its trivial sky!
What hand shall then unroll
Dead Maro’s little golden scroll
When earth and sun in one wide charnal lie?
Boast no more, proud singers;
Your high immortal throne
Will scarce outlast a king’s! (Text.)
--ALFRED NOYES, _The Bookman_.
(3279)
See PERISHABLENESS.
=Transition=--See ETERNAL, THE, AT HAND.
=Transitoriness=--See PERMANENCY.