Forgetting quite their pains and perils past.
And before dismissing “the billows past,” it is worth while to quote the following passage from Spenser’s Faery Queene (I. 9. 40):—
What if some little pain the passage have
That makes frail flesh to fear the bitter wave?
Is not short pain well borne that brings long ease,
And lays the soul to sleep in quiet grave?
Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,
Ease after war, death after life, does greatly please.
Lucretius says:—