To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.

To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.

O Death! O Change! O Time!
Without you, O! the insufferable eyes
Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,
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O Death! O Change! O Time!
Without you, O! the insufferable eyes
Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,
These fatuous, ineffectual yesterdays.

The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.

The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.

The next day is never so good as the day before.

The next day is never so good as the day before.

Listen to the Water-Mill:
Through the live-long day
How the clicking of its wheel
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Listen to the Water-Mill:
Through the live-long day
How the clicking of its wheel
Wears the hours away!
Languidly the Autumn wind
Stirs the forest leaves,
From the field the reapers sing
Binding up their sheaves:
And a proverb haunts my mind
As a spell is cast,
"The mill cannot grind
With the water that is past."

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the read more

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.

But how carve way i' the life that lies before,
If bent on groaning ever for the past?

But how carve way i' the life that lies before,
If bent on groaning ever for the past?

I cannot sing the old songs, Or dream those dreams again,

I cannot sing the old songs, Or dream those dreams again,

The light of other days is faded,
And all their glories past.

The light of other days is faded,
And all their glories past.