The past is o’er–
Waste not thy days in vain regret,
Grieve thou no more.
Look now before
And not behind thee; do not fret–
The past is o’er
Close memory’s door;
That day is dead, that sun has set–
The past is o’er.
There are in store
For thee still happy days. Forget!
Grieve thou no more.
One of the most serious problems of life is the laying down of things with which we have nothing more to do. It is hard for us to let go interests and affairs for which we have been responsible for a time, but the responsibility for which his now another’s, not ours. We are apt to want to keep our hand upon the old tasks even when they are ours no longer. They seem to be part of our life which we cannot lay down. The old man, when his work and his cares have passed to his sons, or to others, finds it almost impossible not to continue his hold upon things. The mother in her advanced years, when her daughters are in their own homes and she is guest now, her old age gently sheltered by their love, unconsciously thinks of them as children still and expects not only the honour which is rightly hers and freely accorded, but ofttimes the old deference to authority, which is not her right.
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