a favorite Shelley poem from Notes from Queen Mab
Dark flood of time! Roll as it listeth thee--I measure not By months or moments thy ambiguous course. Another may stand by me on the brink And watch the bubble whirled beyond his ken That pauses at my feet. The sense of love, The thirst for action, and the impassioned thought Prolong my being: if I wake no more, My life more actual living will contain Than some gray veteran's of the world's cold school, Whose listless hours unprofitably roll, By one enthusiast feeling unredeemed.