Ashes

Famous quotes containing the word ashes:

    Man is no starre, but a quick coal
    Of mortall fire:
    Who blows it not, nor doth controll
    A faint desire,
    Lets his own ashes choke his soul.
    George Herbert (1593–1633)

    We too are ashes as we watch and hear
    The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
    Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
    Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
    The service record of his youth wiped out,
    His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.
    Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)

    But at my back I always hear
    Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
    And yonder all before us lie
    Deserts of vast eternity.
    Thy beauty shall no more be found,
    Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
    My echoing song: then worms shall try
    That long preserved virginity:
    And your quaint honor turn to dust,
    And into ashes all my lust:
    The grave’s a fine and private place,
    But none, I think, do there embrace.
    Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)