Quote#Death
Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die
Quote byDante Gabriel Rossetti · 1828–1882
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Choice.
English (original)
Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die Outstretch'd in the sun's warmth upon the shore, Thou say'st: "Man's measur'd path is all gone o'er: Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, Man clomb until he touch'd the truth; and I, Even I, am he whom it was destin'd for." How should this be? Art thou then so much more Than they who sow'd, that thou shouldst reap thereby?
— Dante Gabriel Rossetti
More from Dante Gabriel Rossetti
If God in his wisdom have brought close The day when I must die, That day by water or fire or air My feet shall fall in the destined snare Wherever my road may lie.
Tell me now in what hidden way is Lady Flora the lovely Roman? Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais, Neither of them the fairer woman? Where is Echo, beheld of no man, Only heard on river and mere—
I am not as these are, the poet saith In youth's pride, and the painter, among men At bay, where never pencil comes nor pem
I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet, keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
From perfect grief there need not be Wisdom or even memory; One thing then learned remains to me — The woodspurge has a cup of three.
Still we say as we go,— "Strange to think by the way Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day."