“We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.”

Letter to Gerald "Ching" Tyrrell, (11 November 1956), p. 28
1990s, The Proud Highway : The Fear and Loathing Letters Volume I (1997)
Context: Hopes rise and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain. The sound of music floats down a dark street.

Source: The Best of Me

"School Days" (1957), Pop Chronicles Show 6 - Hail, Hail, Rock 'n' Roll: The rock revolution gets underway. Part 2 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19752/m1/
Song lyrics

Josh Getlin, Los Angeles Times (July 19, 1994) "What Does Moon Flight Mean Now", The Seattle Times, p. A10.

Source: "The Wild Iris" 1992

Oh Breathe Not His Name, st. 1.
Irish Melodies http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html (1807–1834)

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
Context: If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

Source: House of Leaves

Pt 1, line 301.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)