"Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
0f This and That endeavor and dispute;
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
"Ah! fill the Cup: what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn tomorrow, and dead yesterday,
Why fret about them if today be sweet!"
The goods of existence must be enjoyed here and now, or never, for all must be left behind. What once is enjoyed is forever our very own. Happy is the man who can say, at each day's close, "I have lived!" The day is his, and cannot be recalled. Let Jove overcast with black cloud the heavens of to-morrow, or let him make it bright with clear sunshine,--as he pleases; what the flying hour of to-day has already given us he never can revoke. Life is a stream, now gliding peacefully onward in mid-channel to the Tuscan sea, now tumbling upon its swirling bosom the wreckage of flood and storm. The pitiful human being on its banks, ever looking with greedy expectation up the stream, or with vain regret at what is past, is left at last with nothing at all. The part of wisdom and of happiness is to keep eyes on that part of the stream directly before us, the only part which is ever really seen.
You see how, deep with gleaming snow,