Fir.... Time

What does not fade? the tower, that long had stood
The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer, Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o’er its base,
And flinty pyramids and walls of brass
Descend; the Babylonian spires are sunk;
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires crush by their own weight.

Armstrong.

The clock upon the mantel-piece is ticking;
Thus hour by hour it tolls a funeral chime:
By day and night its calm and constant clicking
Denotes the speed of the old traveller Time.
It is a solemn voice. Who hath an ear
To hear its warning accents, let him hear,
And preparation make to meet the day
When he, alone, shall lie upon the brink
Of human life, and death shall bid him drink
The hemlock cup that none can put away.
What though man turn from the unwelcome theme,
Will Time sit still for man’s forgetfulness?—
To watch and wake were wiser than to dream
And wake at last to wo remediless.

MacKellar.

The world’s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls its fountains
Against the morning-star.
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads, on a sunnier deep;
A loftier Argos cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death’s scroll must be!
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free:
Although a subtile sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew,
Another Athens shall arise,
And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;
And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more wise and good
Than all who fell, than one who rose,
Than many unwithstood—
Not gold, nor blood, their altar dowers,
But native tears and symbol flowers.
Oh cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.
The world is weary of the past—
Oh, might it die or rest at last!

Shelley.

Time past and time to come are not—
Time present is our only lot;
O God, henceforth our hearts incline
To seek no other love than thine!

Montgomery.

Then haste thee, Time—’tis kindness all
That speeds thy winged feet so fast;
Thy pleasures stay not till they pall,
And all thy pains are quickly past.

Bryant.

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgotten as soon
As done.

Shakspeare.

As through a valley remote I strayed,
Methought, beside a mouldering temple’s stone,
The tale of whose dark structure was unknown,
I saw the form of Time: his scythe’s huge blade
Lay swathed in the grass, whose gleam was seen
Fearful, as oft the wind, the tussocks green
Moved stirring to and fro: the beam of morn
Cast a dim lustre on his look forlorn;
When touching a responsive instrument,
Stern o’er the chords his furrowed brow he bent:
Meantime a naked boy, with aspect sweet,
Played smiling with the hour-glass at his feet!
Apart from these, and in a verdant glade,
A sleeping infant on the moss was laid,
O’er which a female form her vigils kept,
And watched it, softly-breathing as it slept.
Then I drew nigh, and to my listening ear
Came, stealing soft and slow, this ditty clear:

“Lullaby, sing lullaby,—
Sweetest babe, in safety lie;
I thy mother sit and sing,
Nor hear of Time the hurrying wing.
Here, where innocence reposes,
Fairy sylphs, your sports delay;
Then the breath of morning roses
From its bed of bliss convey.
Lullaby, sing lullaby,—
Sweetest babe, in safety lie;
I thy mother sit and sing,
Nor hear of Time the hurrying wing.”

Bowles.

Relentless Time! that steals with silent tread,
Shall tear away the trophies of the dead.
Fame, on the pyramid’s aspiring top,
With sighs shall her recording trumpet drop;
The feeble characters of Glory’s hand
Shall perish, like the tracks upon the sand;
But not with these expire the sacred flame
Of virtue, or the good man’s awful name.

Bowles.

O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o’er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life’s peaceful evening with a smile—
As some lone bird, at day’s departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:—
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

Bowles.