Be old betimes, if you wish your old age to last.
Related quotes
He that would be old long, must be old betimes.
He must rise betimes who would please everybody.
He had need rise betimes who would please everybody.
He has need rise betimes that would please everybody.
He that would be old long must begin betimes.
He who would be long an old man must begin betimes.
Put out the fire betimes, ere it reach the roof.
Benefits grow old betimes, but injuries are long livers.
Bleak breeze bites betimes
sorrows seek solace [sp]reading
sweet scented ku rhymes
(8 June 2008)
haiku by Jonathan Robin (08 June 2008)
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Hamlet: Not a whit Horatio; we defy augury; there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all; since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be.
line from Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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The Fog Returns
Today the fog returns,
As betimes it does—
Quietly settling in,
‘Fore one could know it was.
The streetlights glisten
Through the misty haze,
With emitted ambience
That readily amazes.
But soon the fog will lift
And silently creep away,
To mysteriously return
Again some other day.
poem by Walterrean Salley
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Margaret Has A Milking-Pail
Margaret has a milking-pail,
And she rises early;
Thomas has a threshing-flail,
And he's up betimes.
Sometimes crossing through the grass
Where the dew lies pearly,
They say ‘Good morrow’ as they pass
By the leafy limes.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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Fatal Love
Poor Hal caught his death standing under a spout
Expecting till midnight when Nan would come out;
But fatal his patience, as cruel the dame,
And cursed was the weather that quench'd the man's flame.
Whoe'er thou art that reads these moral lines,
Make love at home, and go to bed betimes.
poem by Matthew Prior
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From The Headboard Of A Grave In Paraguay
A troth, and a grief, and a blessing,
Disguised them and came this way--,
And one was a promise, and one was a doubt,
And one was a rainy day.
And they met betimes with this maiden,
And the promise it spake and lied,
And the doubt it gibbered and hugged itself,
And the rainy day-- she died.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Another
Go! obedient to my call,
Turn to profit thy young days,
Wiser make betimes thy breast
In Fate's balance as it sways,
Seldom is the cock at rest;
Thou must either mount, or fall,
Thou must either rule and win,
Or submissively give in,
Triumph, or else yield to clamour:
Be the anvil or the hammer.
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Resignation
To tie me to this tiresome task
no reasons real remain,
save sloth, indignity, and worse,
profit from fortune's fame.
Although for ten percent and less
of someone else's fees
I've brought of my unbiased best,
as everyone agrees,
now to be frank, no more for Franc
I'll beat the bourse for bores,
no more for petty pound to pound
from Terme to Cash for cash its floors.
All things must have an end, their term
soon past, their liquidation
won't last, from first to last I spurn
this cycle of the nation.
Twixt capitals I do commute
for Capital to please.
Their confidence has no real root,
not one of them believes
philosophy that history
provided wings to fly
to men and to humanity
on out towards the sky.
Incentive and innovation
passwords to progress are,
omit the one, the other(s done,
whoever is in power!
The fight against inflation here
has now become a cause!
That fight will fail, or I'm no seer,
the die cast has sore flaws.
The higher rates of interest rise
in France and the Free World,
the less the interest that me ties,
let tragedy unfold!
As shares slide sideways, slip and slump,
while every worker wails;
Spiral of Progress is the rump,
philosophic entrails.
The present spurs too fast, betimes,
men move as in a trance,
and though they talk of hope, betimes,
they look on in askance.
Since our societal system,
like Heaven, few have faith in,
nor faith retain in fellow men,
we race to wrack and ruin.
Here have I fought with might and main
to force my firm to face
the future, but all is in vain
soon it will be too late.
Until today, to say seems strange,
I slaved, nor tempted fate.
I soon shall shed my skin and change,
and then?
(5 July 1974)
poem by Jonathan Robin
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