LIFE.
Life! We've been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear—
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear.
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time,
Say not "good-night," but in some brighter clime,
Bid me "good-morning."
—A. L. Barbauld.
1131
LIFE—EVANESCENCE OF.
How short is human life! the very breath
Which frames my words, accelerates my death.
—Hannah More.
1132
HUMAN LIFE.
Ah! what is human life?
How like the dial's tardy-moving shade,
Day after day slides from us unperceived!
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth;
Too subtle is the movement to be seen:
Yet soon the hour is up—and we are—gone.