For who, alas! has lived,
Nor in the watches of the night recalled
Words he has wished unsaid and deeds undone?
_Reflections_. S. ROGERS.
Thou wilt lament
Hereafter, when the evil shall be done
And shall admit no cure.
_Iliad, Bk. IX_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ BRYANT.
The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,
May hope to achieve it before life be done;
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets.
_Lucile, Pt. 1. Canto II_. LORD LYTTON (_Owen Meredith_).
O lost days of delight, that are wasted in doubting and waiting!
O lost hours and days in which we might have been happy!
_Tales of a Wayside Inn: The Theologian's Tale_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
Calmly he looked on either Life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear:
From Nature's temp'rate feast rose satisfied.
Thanked Heaven that he had lived, and that he died.
_Epitaph X_. A. POPE.