And What Is Writ Is Writ -

...and These Vicissitudes Come Best In Youth; For When They Happen At A Riper Age, People Are Apt To Blame The Fates, Forsooth, And Wonder Providence Is Not More Sage. Adversity Is The First Path To Truth: He Who Hath Proved War, Storm, Or Woman's Rage, Whether His Winters Be Eighteen Or Eighty, Has Won Experience Which Is Deem'd So Weighty.

Time Strips Our Illusions Of Their Hue, And One By One In Turn, Some Grand Mistake Casts Off Its Bright Skin Yearly Like The Snake.

When Falls The Coliseum, Rome Shall Fall; And When Rome Falls--the World.

Retirement Accords With The Tone Of My Mind; I Will Not Descend To A World I Despise.

Eternal Spirit Of The Chainless Mind! Brightest In Dungeons, Liberty! Thou Art, For There Thy Habitation Is The Heart-- The Heart Which Love Of Thee Alone Can Bind; And When Thy Sons To Fetters Are Consign'd-- To Fetters And Damp Vault's Dayless Gloom, Their Country Conquers With Their Martyrdom.