This _Glasse_ declares, how _Time_ doth passe away; And, if the _Words_, about it, rightly say, Thy _Time that’s gone, is lost_: and, proofe will shew, That, many find both _Words_, and _Emblem_, true. How fast their _Time_ departs, they best perceive, From whom it steales, before they take their leave, Of what they love; and, whose last _houre_ is gone, Before their chiefest businesses are done. How fast it slides, ev’n they are also taught, (Too late, perhaps) who never kept in thought Their _ending-day_; but, alwayes did presume, Or, largely hope upon the _Time to come_; The _present-howres_, nor thankfully enjoying, Nor, honestly, nor usefully employing. That, _yeares expir’d, are lost_, they likewise find: For, when their understanding brings to mind, How fondly (or, how ill perchance) they spent Their _passed age_; they see, with discontent, The _Time_, not onely _lost_, but, worse than so; _Lost_, with a thousand other Losses moe: And, that, when they shall need it, _wealth_ nor _pow’r_, Can purchase them, one _minute_ of an _howre_. Consider this, all ye that spend the _prime_, The _noone tide_, and the _twilight_ of your _Time_, In childish play-games, or meere worldly things; As if you could, at pleasure, clip _Times_ wings, Or turne his _Glasse_, or, had a _Life_, or twaine To live, when you had fool’d out _this_ in vaine. Short is the _present_; lost _Times-passed_ bee; And, _Time to come_, wee may not live to see. _The =Garland=, He alone shall weare, Who, to the =Goale=, doth persevere._ [Illustration: PERSEVERANTI DABITUR. ILLVSTR. L. _Book. 4_]