Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam

“ Pour us a brimming draught of pain, of pleasure,
And grant that we die young!
Man doth not ever find amid the grasses
A plant that wind and frost more quickly slay,
Nor doth he form a vessel out of clay
More brittle than himself—so soon he passes.
What though he build the structure stone by stone
Of all his knowledge, thought, and will, and yearning? ”