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.

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

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

Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is read more

Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.

It's linkage I'm talking about, and harmonies and structures, And all the various things that lock our wrists to the read more

It's linkage I'm talking about, and harmonies and structures, And all the various things that lock our wrists to the past.

To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

The free world must now prove itself worthy of its own past.

The free world must now prove itself worthy of its own past.

The past always looks better than it was; it's only pleasant because it isn't here.

The past always looks better than it was; it's only pleasant because it isn't here.

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."