Alas! dear friend, alas! time hastes away, Nor is it in your power to bribe its stay; The rolling years with constant motion run, Lo! while I speak, the present minute’s gone, And following hours still urge the foregoing on. ’Tis not thy wealth, ’tis not thy power, ’Tis not thy piety can thee secure; They’re all too feeble to withstand Gray hairs, approaching age, and thy avoidless end. When once thy glass is run, When once thy utmost thread is spun, ‘Twill then be fruitless to expect reprieve; Could’st thou ten thousand kingdoms give In purchase for each hour of longer life, They would not buy one gasp of breath, Nor move one jot inexorable death. Perhaps there is no illustration in our language more impressive than Young’s noble apostrophe, commencing: The bell strikes one. _We take no note of time But from its loss_: to give it, then, a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours. Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. *          *          *          * O time! than gold more sacred; more a load Than lead to fools, and fools reputed wise. What moment granted man without account? What years are squandered, wisdom’s debt unpaid! Our wealth in days all due to that discharge. *          *          *          * Youth, is not rich in time; it may be poor; Part with it as with money, sparing; pay No moment, but in purchase of its worth; And what’s it worth, ask death-beds; they can tell. Part with it as with life, reluctant; big With holy hope of nobler time to come. *          *          *          * But why on time so lavish is my song? On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school To teach her sons herself. Each night we die— Each morn are born anew; each day a life; And shall we kill each day? If trifling kills, Sure vice must butcher. Oh, what heaps of slain Cry out for vengeance on us; time destroyed Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt. Throw years away! Throw empires, and be blameless: moments seize; Heaven’s on their wing: a moment we may wish, When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand still, Bid him drive back his car, and re-impart The period past, regive the given hour. O for yesterdays to come! How exquisite is this beguiling of time in _Paradise Lost_. With thee conversing I forget all time; All seasons, and their change, all please alike.