Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and… - Konstantinos P. Cavafy

And if you can’t make your life as you’d wish it,
try, at the very least, to accomplish this much:
do not make it less than what it already is
by mixing too excessively with the masses,
by hanging around and endlessly chattering.

Don’t cheapen your life by parading it around,
hauling it everywhere and laying it out there
for the dreary humbug of familiars and fellowship,
until it comes to feel like a curious dead weight.

Ideal voices and beloved
of those who have died, or of those
who are lost to us like the dead.
Sometimes, within our dreams, they speak;
sometimes the mind can hear them in our thoughts.
And with their sound for an instant return
sounds from the early poetry of our lifelike music in the night, faraway, that fades.

Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.