A little rule, a little sway,
  A sunbeam in a winter’s day,
  Is all the proud and mighty have
  Between the cradle and the grave.
Grongar Hill.  J. DYER.

  So may’st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop
  Into thy mother’s lap
Paradise Lost, Bk.  XI.  MILTON.

  Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! 
   To all the sensual world proclaim,
  One crowded hour of glorious life
   Is worth an age without a name.
Old Mortality:  Chapter Head.  SIR W. SCOTT.

  Let us (since life can little more supply
  Than just to look about us, and to die)
  Expatiate free o’er all this scene of man;
  A mighty maze! but not without a plan.
Essay on Man, Epistle I.  A. POPE.

  The world’s a theatre, the earth a stage
  Which God and nature do with actors fill.
Apology for Actors.  T. HEYWOOD.

  To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
  To the last syllable of recorded time;
  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
  The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle! 
  Life is but a walking shadow; a poor player. 
  That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
  And then is heard no more:  it is a tale
  Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
  Signifying nothing.
Macbeth, Act v.  Sc. 5 SHAKESPEARE.

  The web of our life is of a mingled
  Yarn, good and ill together.
All’s Well that Ends Well, Act iv.  Sc. 3.  SHAKESPEARE.

  And what’s a life?—­a weary pilgrimage,
  Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
  With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age.
What is Life?  P. QUARLES.

  An elegant sufficiency, content,
  Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
  Ease and alternate labor, useful life,
  Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!
The Seasons:  Spring.  J. THOMSON.

  On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail,
  Reason the card, but passion is the gale.
Essay on Man, Epistle II.  A. POPE.

  I cannot tell what you and other men
  Think of this life; but, for my single self,
  I had as lief not be as live to be
  In awe of such a thing as I myself.
Julius Caesar, Act i.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

    Why, what should be the fear? 
  I do not set my life at a pin’s fee.
Hamlet, Act i.  Sc. 4.  SHAKESPEARE.

  “Life is not lost,” said she, “for which is bought
  Endlesse renowne.”
Faerie Queene, Bk.  III.  Canto XI.  E. SPENSER.

  Our life is scarce the twinkle of a star
  In God’s eternal day.
Autumnal Vespers.  B. TAYLOR.

  There taught us how to live; and (oh, too high
  The price for knowledge!) taught us how to die.
On the Death of Addison.  T. TICKELL.