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Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art . . . it has no survival value; rather is one of those things that
give
value to survival.

- C.S. Lewis, In Friendship

CXXIII



No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:

Thy pyramids built up with newer might

To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

They are but dressings of a former sight.

Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire

What thou dost foist upon us that is old;

And rather make them born to our desire

Than think that we before have heard them told.

Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Not wondering at the present nor the past,

For thy records and what we see doth lie,

Made more or less by thy continual haste.

  This I do vow and this shall ever be;

  I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXI



Or I shall live your epitaph to make,

Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;

From hence your memory death cannot take,

Although in me each part will be forgotten.

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

The earth can yield me but a common grave,

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;

And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,

When all the breathers of this world are dead;

  You still shall live,--such virtue hath my pen,--

  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

 	--William Shakespeare

CLIV



The little Love-god lying once asleep,

Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,

Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep

Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand

The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;

And so the general of hot desire

Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm'd.

This brand she quenched in a cool well by,

Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,

Growing a bath and healthful remedy,

For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,

  Came there for cure and this by that I prove, 

  Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

	--William Shakespeare