So, while my father is fixing the fire in the fireplace as I finish my plate of dinner nearby, he recites:
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God overhead !
And then asks: Who wrote those words?
I make a guess and it is wrong. Not Shakespeare even though the last line is strangely familiar.
Longfellow.
Ah. Of course. Why didn’t I think of Longfellow.
He adds: From Psalm on Life.
His encyclopedic memory never seizes to impress me.
