A garland of quotations CXXVII

Culled from the finest adamants in literary history, and re-woven every Wednesday

(Upcoming appearances: July 15, 6–7:30, author talk, Old Stone Church, 251 Main St., East Haven CT) | July 19, 10–3, Book Walk, Main St., Old Wethersfield CT)

Iron bars will bend and break.
•trad., “London Bridge Is Falling Down.”

And all my sloth and failure, all my passion
One with the sorrow of the Gaul and Goth,
And all our fireproof homes are burnt and ashen,
And in the moth-proof closets dwells the moth;
And every most unspeakable thing is spoken,
Rust in the rust-resisting pipes of brass,
And unbreakable things at last are broken;
Shatter’d the non-shatterable glass.
•Morris Bishop, ”Eschatology” (c. 1945).

When Earth begins to crack and break, those perfect ceaseless machines will try to repair her—
•John W. Campbell, “Twilight” (1934).

And from that time on there will be nothing that will be destroyed.
•Enoch 69:29a.

Cheese is the one thing that’s indestructible.
•The Dead Milkmen, “Beige Sunshine” (1990).

They say it’s always darkest before the dawn, but there’s no way I’m getting up that early.
•Fleming & Giffen, Son of Ambush Bug #1 (1986).

      Lo! Earth has passed away
      On the smoke of Judgment Day.
That Our word may be established shall We gather up the sea?
•Kipling, “The Last Chantey” (1892).

In those dreadful days, five wicked priests’ heads shall be sold for a penny,
Slaughter shall rage to such a degree,
   And infants left by those that are slain,
That damsels shall with fear and glee,
   Cry, “Mother, mother, here’s a man !”
•The Original Predictions of Robert Nixon, As Delivered by Himself, in Doggrel Verse (1798?).

Acorns were used in the place of bread. Procopius had seen a deserted orphan suckled by a she-goat. Seventeen passengers were lodged, murdered and eaten, by two women, who were detected and slain by the eighteenth, &c.
•Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol. IV (1788).

Thou little kid didst play
&c
•Blake, ”The Kid,” in toto (ca. 1815?).

Sources: Bishop: in John Hollander, ed., American Wits (Library of America: 2003); Campbell: in Robert Silverberg, ed., The Science Fiction Hall of Fame vol. 1 (Avon, 1971); Enoch: trans. Rev. George H. Schodde, Ph.D., The Book of Enoch: Translated from the Ethiopic, with Introduction and Notes (Warren F. Draper, 1882); Milkmen: Metaphysical Graffiti (1990); Nixon: from Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecies; Reprinted and Edited from the Best Sources, and Including a Copy of the Prophecy from an Unpublished Manuscript (Abel Heywood & Son, 1878); Blake: David V. Erdman, ed., The Poetry and Prose of William Blake (Doubleday & Co., 1970); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.