For the world is forever improving, All the past is not worth one to-day, And whatever deserves our true loving. Is stronger than death or decay. Old love, was it wasted devotion? Old friends, were they weak or untrue? Well, let them sink there in mid ocean, And gaily sail on to the new. Throw overboard toil misdirected. Throw overboard ill-advised hope, With aims which, your soul has detected, Have self as their centre and scope. Throw overboard useless regretting For deeds which you cannot undo, And learn the great art of forgetting Old things which embitter the new. Sing who will of dead years departed, I shroud them and bid them adieu, And the song that I sing, happy-hearted, Is a song of the glorious new. NOW. One looks behind him to some vanished time And says, “Ah, I was happy then, alack! I did not know it was my life’s best prime-- Oh, if I could go back!” Another looks, with eager eyes aglow, To some glad day of joy that yet will dawn, And sighs, “I shall be happy then, I know; Oh, let me hurry on.” But I--I look out on my fair To-day; I clasp it close and kiss its radiant brow. Here with the perfect present let me stay, For I am happy now! End of Project Gutenberg's Poems of Pleasure, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox