Finish Every Day by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finish Every Day by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities
no doubt have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely
and with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with
your old nonsense.

This day is all that is
good and fair.
It is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on yesterdays.

Checking the Day by Edgar Guest

Checking the Day by Edgar Guest

"I had a full day in my purse
      When I arose, and now it's gone!
I wonder if I can rehearse
      The squandered hours, one by one,
And count the minutes as I do
      The pennies and the dimes I've spent.
I've had a day, once bright and new,
      But, oh, for what few things it went!

There were twelve hours when I began,
      Good hours worth sixty minutes each,
Yet some of them so swiftly ran
      I had no time for thought or speech.
Eight of them to my task I gave,
      Glad that it did not ask for mre.
Part of the day I tried to save,
      But now I cannot say what for.

An hour I spent for idle chat,
      Gossip and scandal I confess;
No better off am I for that,
      Would I had talked a little less.
I watched steel workers bolt a beam,
      What time that cost I don't recall.
How very short the minutes seem
      When they are spent on trifles small.

Quite empty is my purse to-night
      Which held at dawn a twelve-hour day,
For all of it has taken flight—
      Part wisely spent, part thrown away.
I did my task and earned its gain,
      But checking deeds with what they cost,
Two missing hours I can't explain,
      They must be charges as lost."