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.
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.