WATCH-PAPER INSCRIPTION.
Onward perpetually moving,
These faithful hands are ever proving
How quick the hours fly by;
This monitory, pulse-like beating
Seems constantly, methinks, repeating,
Swift! swift! the moments fly.
Reader, be ready,—for perhaps before
These hands have made one revolution more,
Life’s spring is snapt,—you die!
Here, reader, see in youth, in age, or prime,
The stealing steps of never-standing Time:
With wisdom mark the moment as it flies;
Think what a moment is to him who dies.
Little monitor, impart
Some instruction to the heart;
Show the busy and the gay
Life is hasting swift away.
Follies cannot long endure,
Life is short and death is sure.
Happy those who wisely learn
Truth from error to discern.
Could but our tempers more like this machine,
Not urged by passion, nor delayed by spleen,
And true to Nature’s regulating power,
By virtuous acts distinguish every hour;
Then health and joy would follow as they ought
The laws of motion, and the laws of thought;
Sweet health to pass the present moment o’er,
And everlasting joy when time shall be no more.