The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the poem The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, 1859.





Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime.
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.

(From "A Psalm of Life," 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 - 1882)