NOT FORGETING ETERNITY

"Still, O'Nolan never forgot about eternity."

-- Myles Before Myles, John Wyse Jackson, editor; Chapter 1

No truer word was ever spoken!

I can well remember crawling

Over the rooftops at dawn

And O'Nolan caroling out

"Don't you ever wonder
What Eternity is doing now?

Is he still, do you think,

The laughing boy we knew

Or has Time, his old enemy,

Made him lean and sober?"

Once, when someone refused

To loan him six groschen

O'Nolan's eyes were pinpoints

"Eternity," he said, "would never

On the worst day ever he had

Have treated me so!"

In the old days I was never

As close to Eternity as O'Nolan

Though we smiled when we met;

I was too shallow for him.

There was also bad blood

Between him and Infinity who is

Some sort of cousin of mine,

Though many times removed.

When O'Nolan died, though,

Eternity gave me a lift home

From the services.