What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.

Yet smelt roast meat, beheld a huge fire shine, And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared.

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?

What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.

Which cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires The young, makes Weariness forget his toil, And Fear her danger; opens a new world When this, the present, palls.

All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage.

I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?