Nature knows No steadfast motion, but or ebbs or flows. Ever in motion, she destroys her old, And casts new figures in another mould. Even times are in perpetual flux, and run, Like rivers from their fountains rolling on. For Time, no more than streams, is at a stay,— The flying hour is ever on her way; And as the fountain still supplies her store, The wave behind impels the wave before; Thus in successive course the minutes run, And urge their predecessor minutes on, Still moving, ever anew; for former things Are set aside, like abdicated kings; And every moment alters what is done, And innovates some act till then unknown. *          *          *          * Time is th’ effect of motion, born a twin, And with the worlds did equally begin: Time, like a stream that hastens from the shore, Flies to an ocean where ’tis known no more: All must be swallow’d in this endless deep, And motion rest in everlasting sleep. *          *          *          * Time glides along with undiscover’d haste, The future but a length behind the past, So swift are years. *          *          *          * Thy teeth, devouring Time! thine, envious Age! On things below still exercise your rage; With venom’d grinders you corrupt your meat, And then, at ling’ring meals, the morsels eat. The comparison to a river is more amply developed by a modern poet: The lapse of time and rivers is the same: Both speed their journey with a restless stream; The silent pace with which they steal away, No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay: Alike irrevocable both when past, And a wide ocean swallows both at last. Though each resembles each in every part, A difference strikes, at length, the musing heart: Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound, How laughs the land with various plenty crown’d! But time, that should enrich the nobler mind, Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind. An old playwright makes him a fisher by the stream: Nay, dally not with time, the wise man’s treasure, Though fools are lavish on’t—the fatal fisher Hooks souls, while we waste moments. Horace has some lines, thus paraphrased by Oldham: