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7/22/2025, 1:04:47 PM
>"Many's the slip,"
>Hath the proverb well said, "'twixt the cup and the lip!"
>How blest should we be, have I often conceived,
>Had we really achieved what we nearly achieved!
>We but catch at the skirts of the thing we would be,
>And fall back on the lap of a false destiny.
>So it will be, so has been, since this world began!
>And the happiest, noblest, and best part of man
>Is the part which he never hath fully play'd out:
>For the first and last word in life's volume is — Doubt.
>The face of the most fair to our vision allow'd
>Is the face we encounter and lose in the crowd.
>The thought that most thrills our existence is one
>Which, before we can frame it in language, is gone.
>O Horace! the rustic still rests by the river,
>But the river flows on, and flows past him forever!
>Who can sit down, and say "What I will be, I will"?
>Who stand up, and affirm... "What I was, I am still"?
>Who is that must not, if question'd, say: "What
>"I would have remain'd or become, I am not"?
>We are ever behind, or beyond, or beside
>Our intrinsic existence. Forever at hide
>And seek with our souls. Not in Hades alone
>Doth Sisyphus roll, ever frustrate, the stone,
>Do the Danaids ply, ever vainly, the sieve.
>Tasks as futile does earth to its denizens give.
>Yet there's none so unhappy, but what he hath been
>Just about to be happy, at some time, I ween;
>And none so beguiled and defrauded by chance,
>But what once in his life, some minute circumstance
>Would have fully sufficed to secure him the bliss
>Which, missing it then, he forever must miss.
>And to most of us, ere we go down to the grave,
>Life, relenting, accords the good gift we would have;
>But, as though by some strange imperfection in fate,
>The good gift, when it comes, comes a moment too late.
>The Future's great veil our breath fitfully flaps,
>And behind it broods ever the mighty Perhaps.
-from Lucile by Owen Meredith
>Hath the proverb well said, "'twixt the cup and the lip!"
>How blest should we be, have I often conceived,
>Had we really achieved what we nearly achieved!
>We but catch at the skirts of the thing we would be,
>And fall back on the lap of a false destiny.
>So it will be, so has been, since this world began!
>And the happiest, noblest, and best part of man
>Is the part which he never hath fully play'd out:
>For the first and last word in life's volume is — Doubt.
>The face of the most fair to our vision allow'd
>Is the face we encounter and lose in the crowd.
>The thought that most thrills our existence is one
>Which, before we can frame it in language, is gone.
>O Horace! the rustic still rests by the river,
>But the river flows on, and flows past him forever!
>Who can sit down, and say "What I will be, I will"?
>Who stand up, and affirm... "What I was, I am still"?
>Who is that must not, if question'd, say: "What
>"I would have remain'd or become, I am not"?
>We are ever behind, or beyond, or beside
>Our intrinsic existence. Forever at hide
>And seek with our souls. Not in Hades alone
>Doth Sisyphus roll, ever frustrate, the stone,
>Do the Danaids ply, ever vainly, the sieve.
>Tasks as futile does earth to its denizens give.
>Yet there's none so unhappy, but what he hath been
>Just about to be happy, at some time, I ween;
>And none so beguiled and defrauded by chance,
>But what once in his life, some minute circumstance
>Would have fully sufficed to secure him the bliss
>Which, missing it then, he forever must miss.
>And to most of us, ere we go down to the grave,
>Life, relenting, accords the good gift we would have;
>But, as though by some strange imperfection in fate,
>The good gift, when it comes, comes a moment too late.
>The Future's great veil our breath fitfully flaps,
>And behind it broods ever the mighty Perhaps.
-from Lucile by Owen Meredith
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