Often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow.1
ATTRIBUTION:
The Death of Wallenstein. Act v. Sc. 1.
Note 1. Sed ita a principio inchoatum esse mundum ut certis rebus certa signa præcurrerent (Thus in the beginning the world was so made that certain signs come before certain events).—Cicero: Divinatione, liber i. cap. 52.
Coming events cast their shadows before.—Thomas Campbell: Lochiel’s Warning.
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.—Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Defence of Poetry. [back]
