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“If we Could go Back in Time   If we could go back in time, what changes would we make? If we could relive our lives, what different roads would we take?   Would we say we’re sorry to those that we done wrong? Would we embrace and hold tight, our loved ones, who have been gone for so long?   Would we undo some of the things that we once did? Would we change some of the words that we once said?   Would we appreciate those who are now in our lives? Or would we wait again, until they are gone or die?   Would we hold our children once again on our knee? Would we say to Mom and Dad, how much you mean to me?   For some day, now, will be the past where you wish you could go, To relive today and there to show,   Your love for those that mean so much to you, For you cannot go back in time, no matter how much you want to.”
― Kenneth Edward Barnes, My Favorite Poems

“Purity, they imagined, was only becoming in those on whom fortune had not smiled. It is the moon which has room or stains, not the stars.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World

“The scene of the Epic is the ancient kingdom of the Kurus which flourished along the upper course of the Ganges; and the historical fact on which the Epic is based is a great war which took place between the Kurus and a neighbouring tribe, the Panchalas, in the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ. According to the Epic, Pandu and Dhrita-rashtra, who was born blind, were brothers. Pandu died early, and Dhrita-rashtra became king of the Kurus, and brought up the five sons of Pandu along with his hundred sons. Yudhishthir, the eldest son of Pandu, was a man of truth and piety; Bhima, the second, was a stalwart fighter; and Arjun, the third son, distinguished himself above all the other princes in arms. The two youngest brothers, Nakula and Sahadeva, were twins. Duryodhan was the eldest son of Dhrita-rashtra and was jealous of his cousins, the sons of Pandu. A tournament was held, and in the course of the day a warrior named Karna, of unknown origin, appeared on the scene and proved himself a worthy rival of Arjun. The rivalry between Arjun and Karna is the leading thought of the Epic, as the rivalry between Achilles and Hector is the leading thought of the Iliad. It is only necessary to add that the sons of Pandu as well as Karna, were, like the heroes of Homer, god-born chiefs. Some god inspired the birth of each. Yudhishthir was the son of Dharma or Virtue, Bhima of Vayu or Wind, Arjun of Indra or Rain-god, the twin youngest were the sons of the Aswin twins, and Karna was the son of Surya the Sun, but was believed by himself and by all others to be the son of a simple chariot-driver. The portion translated in this Book forms Sections cxxxiv. to cxxxvii. of Book i. of the original Epic in Sanscrit (Calcutta edition of 1834).”
― Romesh Chunder Dutt, Maha-bharata The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse

“Love's Prayer If Heaven would hear my prayer,   My dearest wish would be, Thy sorrows not to share   But take them all on me; If Heaven would hear my prayer. I'd beg with prayers and sighs   That never a tear might flow From out thy lovely eyes,   If Heaven might grant it so; Mine be the tears and sighs. No cloud thy brow should cover,   But smiles each other chase From lips to eyes all over   Thy sweet and sunny face; The clouds my heart should cover. That all thy path be light   Let darkness fall on me; If all thy days be bright,   Mine black as night could be; My love would light my night. For thou art more than life,   And if our fate should set Life and my love at strife,   How could I then forget I love thee more than life?”
― John Hay, Poems