Last Lines 7

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

From 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer."

From the first paragraph of the poem by Dylan Thomas. Surely a poetic expression of a basic unalienable truth, the common ancestry of all life. When I feel the need to indulge the spiritual side of my nature I turn to works such as this. Of course much of the King James's version of the Bible is superbly poetic and can be enjoyed as such but where is truth to be found in its preposterous subject matter?

Last Lines 6

"As she went on her way, gossamer threads, spun from bush to bush, barricaded her pathway, and as she broke through one after another of these fairy barricades she thought, 'They're trying to bind me and keep me'. But the threads which were to bind her to her native country were more enduring than gossamer. They were spun of love and kinship and cherished memories."

From 'Candleford Green' by Flora Thompson

Last Lines 5

"One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

From Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Also inscribed on a cross on Observation Hill, Antarctica, in memory of Scott & his party

Last Lines 4

"I lingered round them under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth"

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
(This is a very well-known last line, but none the worse for that. In fact when one comes to search for notable, resonant or distinctive examples they are very hard to come by. I have looked, for example, through all Dickens's novels and short stories and only found the already well known one from 'Tale of Two Cities", which I shall no doubt be driven to use at some time. Any suggestions will be welcome.)