Part of a poem by Louis Macneice
Where can you find a fire that burns and gives no warmth?
Where is the tall ship that chose to run on a rock?
Where are there more fish than ever filled the ocean?
Where can you find a clock that strikes when it has stopped?
Oh, poverty is the fire that burns and gives no warmth,
My youth is the tall ship that chose to run on a rock,
Men yet unborn could more than fill the ocean,
And death is the black clock that strikes when it has stopped.
(from A Hand of Snapshots, 1954)
Loius Macneice