I feel like one who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.
Dr. Johnson said that “no one does anything for the last time (knowingly) but with regret.”
In Bishop Hall’s Holy Observations (xxvij) is this passage:—
“Nothing is more absurd than that Epicurean resolution, ‘Let us eat and drink, to-morrow we die’; as if we were made only for the paunch, and lived that we might live. Yet has there never any natural man found savour in that meat which he knew should be his last; whereas they should say: Let us fast and pray, for to-morrow we shall die.”
SHAKSPEREAN RESEMBLANCES.
Ah! that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,