No traces left of all the busy scene,
But that remembrances says: The things have been.

No traces left of all the busy scene,
But that remembrances says: The things have been.

The best of prophets of the future is the past.

The best of prophets of the future is the past.

Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live read more

Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns.

Listen to the Water-Mill:
Through the live-long day
How the clicking of its wheel
read more

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."

Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my read more

Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.

Gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were.

Gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were.

O, to bring back the great Homeric time,
The simple manners and the deed sublime:
When the read more

O, to bring back the great Homeric time,
The simple manners and the deed sublime:
When the wise Wanderer, often foiled by Fate,
Through the long furrow drave the ploughshare straight.

We remain
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.

We remain
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.