FOR though we sleep, or wake, or roam, or ride, Aye fleeth the time; it will no man abide.-Chaucer.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow;
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
Even such is time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days!
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up I trust?
Sir W. Raleigh.
Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross:
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
Time's minutes, whilst they're told,
And every sand of his fleet glass,
Increasing age as it doth pass, Insensibly sows wrinkles there, Where flowers and roses do appear.
Time is the feather'd thing,
And while I praise
The sparklings of thy locks, and call them rays,
Leaving behind him, as he flies,
An unperceived dimness in thine eyes.
Minutes are number'd by the fall of sands,
As by an hour-glass; the span of time
Doth waste us to our graves, and we look on it,
An age of pleasures, revell'd out, comes home
At last, and ends in sorrow: but the life,
Weary of riot, numbers every sand,
Wailing in sighs, until the last drop down;
So to conclude calamity in rest.
Think we, or think we not, Time hurries on
With a resistless, unremitting stream;
Yet treads more soft than e'er did midnight thief,
That slides his hand under the miser's pillow,
And carries off his prize.
We take no note of time
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue,
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departing hours:
Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
Oh Time! thou beautifier of the dead,-
Adorner of the ruin-comforter
And only healer when the heart hath bled—
Time! the corrector when our judgments err,
The test of truth, love,-sole philosopher!-Byron.
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, and pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty rocks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he hath wrought.
Compar'd with thee, even centuries in their might
Seem but like atoms in the sun's broad ray;
Thou sweep'st them on in thy majestic flight,
Scattering them from thy plumes like drops of spray,
Cast from the ocean in its scornful play.
Mrs. A. B. Welby.
ALL transitory titles I detest;
A virtuous life I mean to boast alone;
Our birth's our sires', our virtues be our own.
This honour'd dust that soils your company;
This thing which, nature carelessly obtruded
Upon the world, to teach that pride and folly
Make titular greatness the envy but
Of fools-the wise man's pity.
A fool indeed hath great need of a title,
It teaches men to call him count and duke,
And to forget his proper name of fool.
Titles, the servile courtiers' lean reward,
Sometimes the pay of virtue, but more oft
The hire which greatness gives to slaves and sycophants.
How poor are all hereditary honours,
Those poor possessions from another's deeds,
Unless our own just virtues form our title,
And give a sanction to our fond assumptions!
Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names, Places, and titles; and with these to join
Titles are marks of honest men and wise;
The fool or knave who wears a title, lies.
With their authors, in oblivion sunk,
Vain titles lie; the servile badges oft
Of mean submission, not the meed of worth.
Titles of honour add not to his worth,
Who is himself an honour to his titles.
O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes, there is for it reason great,
For tho' sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy stars, and early drudge and late;
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
Why are we weighed upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness,
All things have rest, why should we toil alone?
We only toil who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; Nor hearken what the inward spirit sings"There is no joy but calm!"
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things.
THE most magnificent and costly dome,
Is but an upper chamber to a tomb;
No spot on earth but has supplied a grave,
And human skulls the spacious ocean pave.-Young.
But still the heart will haunt the well
Wherein the golden bowl lies broken,
And treasure, in the narrow cell,
The past's most holy token!
Or wherefore grieve about the dead?
Why bid the rose-tree o'er them bloom?
Why fondly deck their dismal bed,
And sanctify the tomb.
TO-MORROW you will live, you always cry,
In what far country does this morrow lie,
That 't is so mighty long ere it arrive?
Beyond the Indies does this morrow live?
'Tis so far fetched, this morrow, that I fear
'T will be both very old and very dear.
To-morrow I will live, the fool doth say,
To-day itself's too late; the wise lived yesterday.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace, from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusky death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow! a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Think not to-morrow still shall be your care;
Alas! to-morrow like to-day will fare.
Reflect that yesterday's to-morrow's o'er,—
Thus one "to-morrow," one "to-morrow" more,
Have seen long years before them fade away,
And still appear no nearer than to-day.
Gifford, from Persius.
I am not concerned to know
What to-morrow's fate will do;
"Tis enough that I can say,
I've possessed myself to-day;
Then if haply midnight death,
Seize my flesh and stop my breath,
Yet to-morrow I shall be
Heir to the best part of me.
Oh! how many deeds
Of deathless virtue, and immortal crime,
The world had wanted, had the actor said
I will do this to-morrow!
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