TIME AND ETERNITY.
Sir Thomas More, when a youth, painted for his father’s house in London a hanging with nine pageants, with verses over each. There were Childhood, Manhood, Venus and Cupid, Age, Death, and Fame. In the sixth pageant was painted the image of Time, and under his feet was lying the picture of Fame that was in the sixth pageant. And over this seventh pageant was (spelling modernised):
Time.
I whom thou seest with horologe in hand
Am named Time, the lord of every hour:
I shall in space destroy both sea and land.
O simple Fame, how darest thou man honour,
Promising of his name an endless flower!
Who may in the world have a name eternal,