Time

THE TIME you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

A.E.Housman – To an Athlete Dying Young

The maintainers of this site claim that it's impossible to have a conversation if there is no way of knowing when a given entry was posted. Is that true? Is it necessary to arrange the various parts of a potential conversation in sequential order for a conversation to exist?

Shakespeare Sonnet-a-Day



XIX.

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

I do not have enough time left in my life to spend it
with training for the world record in marathon running.


(hi, old pirate)

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.

(Theophrastus)

You may delay, but time will not.

(Benjamin Franklin)

Time cancels young pain.

(Euripides)

There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they were sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some moments elapsed before any one broke silence

Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.

(Euripides)

Time is only an illusion, life is only a memory. If you can prove me wrong I will love you forever.

Time is many things, a predator that hunts us, a companion, a measuring stick, a riddle, a cure for the heart, a bringer of joy or sorrow. It is not infinite, however.

time was when the water was blue and the grass was green. birds sang and fish didn't fly. now you just never know what lurks behind that shrub. if diversity wasn't so common, it would be disconcerting.

»How the black smoke swirls back against the sky! Is it not beautiful?«
»I dislike smoke of any kind.«
»My great-grandmother smoked a pipe – a clay pipe.«
»Vulgar!«
»She was too distant a relativ to be vulgar. Time mellows pipes.«

The dark-haired stranger knew how to bide his time.