In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.

  -  Elinor Wylie


The years like great black oxen tread the world,
And God the herdsman goads them on behind,
And I am broken by their passing feet.

  -  William Butler Yeats


To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

  -  Mary Oliver


Like a kite
Cut from the string,
Lightly the soul of my youth
Has taken flight.

  -  Ishikawa Takuboku


We live, but a world has passed away
With the years that perished to make us men.

  -  William Dean Howells


How easily the ripe grain
Leaves the husk
At the simple turning of the planet

There is no season
That requires us

  -  W.S. Merwin


One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er;
I am nearer home today
Than I ever have been before.

  -  Phoebe Cary