Oh Time, that ever with resistless wing
Cuts off our joys and shortens all our pain,
Thou great destroyer that doth always bring
Relief to man--all bow beneath thy reign;
Nations before thee fall, and the grim king
Of death and terror follows in thy train.
Thou bring’st the cup of Lethe to the mind,
Which else on earth no joy could ever find.
Little in youth we think upon thy flight,
Nor catch the lesson of each passing day,
Till, when too late, it bursts upon our sight,
And thou hast crowned us with thy cap of grey:
Our friends for ever fled, and all the light
That gilded this dim world hath passed away
On to eternity--thro’ that sad portal
Which parts us, and assures us man is mortal.
Thou teachest us the vanity of earth.
With which, in spite of thee, we are delighted,
And lead’st us quickly onward from our birth
Unto old age, then leav’st us there benighted;
Where all our earthly pleasures, joys, and mirth
Fade fast away, like young leaves seared and blighted.
And hope, that lured us onward, then, we find,
Was but an _ignis fatuus_ of the mind.