Control the present: all besideFlows like a river seaward borne,Now rolling on its placid tide,Now whirling massy trunks uptorn,And waveworn crags, and farms, and stock,In chaos blent, while hill and woodReverberate to the enormous shock,When savage rains the tranquil floodHave stirr'd to madness. Happy he,Self-centred, who each night can say,“My life is lived: the morn may seeA clouded or a sunny day:That rests with Jove: but what is gone,He will not, cannot turn to nought;Nor cancel, as a thing undone,What once the flying hour has brought.”