He said, “What’s time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever.”

In this fragment, the speaker contrasts the animal realm—bound to immediacy (“Now”)—with a distinctly human capacity to live in relation to “Forever.” The line implies that human dignity lies not in mere survival or present appetite but in an orientation toward permanence: memory, moral responsibility, art, faith, or an afterlife. The brusque dismissal (“for dogs and apes”) sharpens the claim that time-consciousness and the ability to conceive eternity are defining human traits. Read in a Browningesque key, it also suggests the poet’s recurrent interest in spiritual aspiration: the present moment is not the whole measure of life, and human action gains meaning when set against an infinite horizon.