On the surface, that’s a nice message on its own, but let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?
As the title suggests, Burns shared the poem in a letter to his friend Mrs. Dunlop, where he ruminates on the passing of a new year. At first, the poem seems as if Burns is working through an existential crisis: “why regard the passing year? … A few days may—a few years must—Repose us in the silent dust.”
He wrestles with the idea that a new year reminds us that this moment is all we have, but quickly banishes those discouraging thoughts with the very lines William and Kate shared.
In experiencing the profound beauty of nature, he finds strength, and he rallies for us all to “live as those who never die.” Make the most of today, the poem urges, while keeping in mind the larger picture of eternity. The lines immediately following the snippet the Prince and Princess of Wales posted underscore that amid the uncertainty of life “hang matters of eternal weight.”
Our “future life in worlds unknown / must take its hue from this alone”—as in, the actions you take right now. Here. Today.
Wow. Can we just take a moment to process that? It’s an especially powerful message coming after Kate’s last personally signed post, in which she announced that her cancer is in remission, after nearly a year of treatment.
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