Begin Today

Dream not too much of what you’ll do tomorrow,

How well you’ll work perhaps another year;

Tomorrow’s chance you do not need to borrow—

Today is here.

Boast not too much of mountains you will master,

The while you linger in the vale below;

To dream is well, but plodding brings us faster

To where we go.

Talk not too much about some new endeavor

You mean to do before the setting of the sun;

Who idles now will idle on forever

Till life is done.

Say not some day to break some habit’s fetter

When this old year is dead and passed away;

If you have need of living wiser, better,

Begin today!

—Anonymous