What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles. What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn, Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,Īnd remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,Īnd the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.īut, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn, Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete, We are working to completion, working on from then to now. He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet, And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. I do not have the ambition to become a saint - it is so hard to live with some of them - but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong. I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains - they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing. Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others help me to endure them with charity. Keep me from the recital of endless details give me wings to get to the point. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity. Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old.
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