Lord Dunsany

Thy life is long, Eternity is short. So short that, shouldst thou die and Eternity should pass, and after the passing of Eternity thou shouldst live again, thou wouldst say: ‘I closed mine eyes but for an instant.’

For three years there had been pestilence, and in the last of the three a famine; moreover, there was imminence of war.

And They made by the lifting of Their hands, each god according to his sign, the Bright One with the flaring tail to seek from the end of the Worlds to the end of them again, to return again after a hundred years. Man, when thou seest the comet, know that another seeketh besides thee nor ever findeth out.

In the city’s midst the gleaming marble of a thousand steps climbed to the citadel where arose four pinnacles beckoning to heaven, and midmost between the pinnacles there stood the dome, vast, as the gods had dreamed it.

All the gods have mocked at prayer. This sin must now be punished by the vengeance of men.

Two men were walking in the street; one said to the other: “Upon the morrow I will sup with thee.” And the Pestilence grinned a grin that none beheld, baring his dripping teeth, and crept away to see whether upon the morrow those men should sup together.