_Behold, alas! our days we spend: How vain they be, how soon they end!_ BEHOLD How short a span Was long enough of old To measure out the life of man; In those well-tempered days his time was then Surveyed, cast up, and found but threescore years and ten. ALAS! What is all that? They come and slide and pass Before my tongue can tell thee what. The posts of time are swift, which having run Their seven short stages o’er, their short-lived task is done. OUR DAYS Begun, we bend To sleep, to antic plays And toys, until the first stage end; 12 waning moons, twice 5 times told, we give To unrecovered loss: we rather breathe than live. WE SPEND A ten years’ breath Before we apprehend What ’tis to live in fear of death; Our childish dreams are filled with painted joys Which please our sense, and waking prove but toys. HOW VAIN, How wretched is Poor man, that doth remain A slave to such a state as this! His days are short at longest; few at most; They are but bad at best, yet lavished out, or lost. THEY BE The secret springs That make our minutes flee On wings more swift than eagles’ wings! Our life’s a clock, and every gasp of breath Breathes forth a warning grief, till time shall strike a death. HOW SOON Our new-born light Attains to full-aged noon! And this, how soon to gray-haired night; We spring, we bud, we blossom, and we blast, Ere we can count our days, our days they flee so fast. THEY END When scarce begun, And ere we apprehend That we begin to live, our life is done. Man, count thy days; and if they fly too fast For thy dull thoughts to count, count every day the last. A VALENTINE. The reader, by taking the first letter of the first of the following lines, the second letter of the second line, the third of the third, and so on to the end, can spell the name of the lady to whom they were addressed by Edgar A. Poe.