The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,

Whereunder crawling coop’d we live and die,

As impotently moves as you or I.

With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man knead,

And there of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed:

What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

YESTERDAY This Day’s Madness did prepare;

TO-MORROW’S Silence, Triumph, or Despair:

Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.