O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done.
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done.
Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age
There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not.
I say, without characters, fame lives long.
And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportiond thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
© 2020 Inspirational Stories
© 2020 Inspirational Stories