IN reading authors, when you find Bright passages that strike your mind, And which, perhaps, you may have reason To think on at another season, Be not contented with the sight, But take them down in Black and White; Such a respect is wisely shewn As makes another's sense one's own. When you're asleep upon your bed A thought may come into your head, Which may be useful, if 'tis taken Due notice of when you are waken. Of midnight thoughts to take no heed Betrays a sleepy soul indeed; It is but dreaming in the day To throw our nightly hours away. In conversation when you meet With persons cheerful and discreet, That speak or quote, in prose or rhyme, Facetious things, or things sublime, Observe what passes, and anon When you get home, think thereupon; Write what occurs, forget it not, A good thing sav'd is so much got. Let no remarkable event Pass with a gaping wonderment, A fool's device,—"Lord, who would think!" Rather record with Pen and ink Whate'er deserves attention now; For when 'tis gone you know not how, Too late you'll find that, to your cost, So much of human life is lost. Were it not for the written letter, Pray what were living men the better For all the labours of the dead? For all that Socrates e'er said? The morals brought from Heav'n to men He would have carry'd back again; 'Tis owing to his Short-hand youth That Socrates does now speak truth. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO LIVE MERRILY AND TO TRUST TO GOOD VERSES by ROBERT HERRICK ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES by JOHN KEATS THE BATTLE OF NASEBY by THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY INDIAN SUMMER (2) by JOHN BANISTER TABB IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 30 by ALFRED TENNYSON |