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."

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

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

The Present is the living sum-total of the whole Past.

The Present is the living sum-total of the whole Past.

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.

The days of rejoicing are gone forever.
[Fr., Ils sont passes ces jours de fete.]

The days of rejoicing are gone forever.
[Fr., Ils sont passes ces jours de fete.]

We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.

We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.

May the dreams of your past be the reality of your future

May the dreams of your past be the reality of your future

Don't brood on the past, but don't forget it either.

Don't brood on the past, but don't forget it either.

The good of other times let people state;
I think it lucky I was born so late.
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The good of other times let people state;
I think it lucky I was born so late.
[Lat., Prisca juvent alios; ego me nunc denique natum Gratulor.]