Ah! that was a pang indeed; 'tis at such a moment that a man wishes to die.

The wise king of Jerusalem, who sat in his shady arbours beside his sunny fishpools, saying so many fine things, wished to die, when he saw that not only all was vanity, but that he himself was vanity.

Will a time come when all will be forgotten that now is beneath the sun?
If so, of what profit is life?
In truth, it was a sore vexation of spirit to me when I saw, as the wise man saw of old, that whatever I could hope to perform must necessarily be of very temporary duration; and if so, why do it?
I said to myself, whatever name I can acquire, will it endure for eternity?
scarcely so.

A thousand years?
Let me see! What have I done already?
I have learnt Welsh, and have translated the songs of Ab Gwilym, some ten thousand lines, into English rhyme; I have also learnt Danish, and have rendered the old book of ballads cast by the tempest upon the beach into corresponding English metre.

Good! have I done enough already to secure myself a reputation of a thousand years?
No, no! certainly not; I have not the slightest ground for hoping that my translations from the Welsh and Danish will be read at the end of a thousand years.