Flows the ruffled streamlet on, Tranquil, deep and still; Never gliding back again To the water-mill; Truly speaks that proverb old With a meaning vast "The mill cannot grind With the water that is past." Take the lesson to thyself, Summer hours depart; Learn to make the most of life, Lose no happy day, Time will never bring thee back, Chances swept away! Leave no tender word unsaid, Love, while love shall last; "The mill cannot grind With the water that is past." Work while yet the daylight shines, Man of strength and will! Never does the streamlet glide Useless by the mill; Wait not till to-morrow's sun Beams upon thy way, All that thou canst call thine own Lies in thy to-day; Power and intellect and health May not always last; "The mill cannot grind With the water that is past." Oh, the wasted hours of life Oh, the good that might have been, A HUNDRED YEARS TO COME. Pale, trembling age, and fiery youth, We all within our graves shall sleep WILLIAM GOLDSMITH "See'st thou that carpet, not half done, Which thou, dear James, hast well begun? Behold the wild confusion there! So rude the mass, it makes one stare. "A stranger, ignorant of the trade, Quoth James, "My work is yet in bits, Says John "Thou say'st the thing I mean, The world, which clouds thy soul with Is but a carpet inside out. "As when we view these shreds and ends, We know not what the whole intends; So when on earth things look but odd, "No plan, no pattern can we trace; "But when we reach the world of light, "What now seem random strokes, will there Then shall we praise what here we spurned, "Thou'rt right," quoth James, "no more I'll grumble, That this world is so strange a jumble; HANNAH MORE. |