Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid …
— from W. H. Auden’s “Lullaby”
Death and the Maiden, George Clark Stanton, 19th Century.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 