the day before yesterday

When I have seen by time's fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

William Shakespeare, sonnet 64, 159-

lek: jump, leap. Gk lagdon: a leap and kick; hence, some suggest E leg . . . Lacertilia: order of reptiles, lizard, chameleon, etc. polatouche: flying squirrel. Sp (Arab al: the) alligator.

Shipley, The Origins of English Words, 1984

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

A. E. Houseman, With Rue My Heart Is Laden, 1896