Regret and Guilt

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer.

And here I sit so patiently Waiting to find out what price You have to pay to get out of Going through all these things twice.

O mother what have I left out O mother what have I forgotten

America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.

No memory of having starred Atones for later disregard, Or keeps the end from being hard. Better to go down dignified With boughten friendship by your side Than none at all. Provide, provide!

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Poor Jim Jay Got stuck fast In Yesterday.

Things said or done long years ago, Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

What have you done, you there Weeping without cease, Tell me, yes you, what have you done With all your youth? 3

I tasted—careless—then— I did not know the Wine Came once a World—Did you? Oh, had you told me so— This Thirst would blister—easier—now

What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!” 2

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill.

And folly’s all they’ve taught me.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!

If you trap the moment before it’s ripe, The tears of repentance you’ll certainly wipe; But if once you let the ripe moment go You can never wipe off the tears of woe.

So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good.

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack’d anything.

I struck the board, and cried, No more: I will abroad. What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free; free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn Before my tears did drown it; Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it?

Had I but serv’d my God with half the zeal 62 I serv’d my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies.

What’s gone and what’s past help Should be past grief.

Alas! ’tis true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view, Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offenses of affections new.

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.