fifty one

We tire of the flame of the meteor *

William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 to 28 January 1939)

fifty

i want to give back this dust i've borrowed *

* Osip Mandelstam (15 January  1891 to 27 December  1938)

forty nine

The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.*

* Sylvia Plath (27 October 1932 - 11 February 1963)  from The Moon and the Yew Tree.

forty eight

At last my work is finished! Now I wish you were here by my side at the piano so that I might play it for you. Perhaps you are the only one to whom nothing in it will seem strange. ... It has turned out so overwhelming - as if it issued from my heart like a mountain stream.*

*  Gustav Mahler  (7 July 1860 - 18 May 1911)