They say that Hope is happiness But genuine Love must prize the past; And Mem'ry wakes the thoughts that bless: They rose first -- they set the last. And all that mem'ry loves the most Was once our only hope to be: And all that hope adored and lost Hath melted into memory. Alas! It is delusion all-- The future cheats us from afar: Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are.
The best prophet of the future is the past.
Socrates said, our only knowledge was "To know that nothing could be known;" a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present. Newton, (that Proverb of the Mind,) alas! Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent, That he himself felt only "like a youth Picking up shells by the great Ocean-Truth."
Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days - whatever there may be for the dust - the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.
For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear.
Yet I did love thee to the last, As ferverently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, And canst not alter now.
Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.
Have not all past human beings parted, And must not all the present, one day part?
When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past - For years fleet away with the wings of the dove - The dearest remembrance will still be the last, Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.
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