<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=342783" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Elixer Vitæ</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of life's elixir I had writ, when sleep<br>(Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!)<br>Settled upon my senses with so deep<br>A stupefaction that men thought me dead.<br>The centuries stole by with noiseless tread,<br>Like spectres in the twilight of my dream;<br>I saw mankind in dim procession sweep<br>Through life, oblivion at each extreme.<br>Meanwhile my beard, like Barbarossa's growing,<br>Loaded my lap and o'er my knees was flowing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The generations came with dance and song,<br>And each observed me curiously there.<br>Some asked: 'Who was he?' Others in the throng<br>Replied: 'A wicked monk who slept at prayer.'<br>Some said I was a saint, and some a bear-<br>These all were women. So the young and gay,<br>Visibly wrinkling as they fared along,<br>Doddered at last on failing limbs away;<br>Though some, their footing in my beard entangled,<br>Fell into its abysses and were strangled.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>At last a generation came that walked<br>More slowly forward to the common tomb,<br>Then altogether stopped. The women talked<br>Excitedly; the men, with eyes agloom<br>Looked darkly on them with a look of doom;<br>And one cried out: 'We are immortal now-<br>How need we these?' And a dread figure stalked,<br>Silent, with gleaming axe and shrouded brow,<br>And all men cried: 'Decapitate the women,<br>Or soon there'll be no room to stand or swim in!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So (in my dream) each lovely head was chopped<br>From its fair shoulders, and but men alone<br>Were left in all the world. Birth being stopped,<br>Enough of room remained in every zone,<br>And Peace ascended Woman's vacant throne.<br>Thus, life's elixir being found (the quacks<br>Their bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped)<br>'Twas made worth having by the headsman's axe.<br>Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking,<br>And crumbled all to powder in the waking.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Ambrose+Bierce">Ambrose Bierce</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=342783" data-title="Elixer Vitæ de Ambrose Bierce" data-description="Of life's elixir I had writ, when sleep (Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!) Settled upon my senses with so deep A stupefaction that men thought me dead. The centuries stole by with noiseless tread, Like spectres in the twilight of my..."></div> </div> </div>

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