'Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge,
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on and bears afar
Our bubbles. As the old burst, new emerge,
Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves
Of empires heave but like some passing waves.
--Lord Byron's last stanza to Canto XV of his incomparable Don Juan
