“The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.”

“Like a mermaid in sea-weed, she dreams awake, trembling in her soft and chilly nest.”

“Youth, what man's age is like to be doth show,
We may our ends by our beginnings know.”

“To-day, in snow array'd, stern winter rules
The ravag'd plain—Anon the teeming earth
Unlocks her stores, and spring adorns the year:
And shall not we—while fate, like winter, frowns,
Expect revolving bliss?”

““A golden age, Londa calls it. She hopes it will return.”
“Golden ages rarely return,” I said “especially if they never existed.””

“Whate'er of earth is form'd, to earth returns,
* * * * The soul
Of man alone, that particle divine,
Escapes the wreck of worlds, when all things fail.”

“Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to hold her,
three times she fluttered through my fingers, sifting away
like a shadow, dissolving like a dream.”

“Huge as the snakes that armed the Giants when they stormed heaven, or as the hydra that wearied Hercules by the waters of Lerna, or as Juno's snake that guarded the boughs with golden foliage.”
Quantis armati caelum petiere Gigantes anguibus, aut quantus Lernae lassavit in undis Amphitryoniaden serpens, qualisque comantis auro servauit ramos Junonius anguis.

“I'd like to impregnate her with a warm smile, listen to my children call her "mummy", be a comfort to her in her old age.”

“In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream- Lingering in the golden gleam- Life, what is it but a dream?”