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ON TIME.
Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race.
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace,
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours--
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross:
So little is our loss!
So little is thy gain!
For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed,
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,
| Then long eternity shall greet |
our bliss |
| With an individual kiss; |
_that cannot be divided-- |
| And joy shall overtake us as a |
flood; [eternal._ |
| When everything that is sincerely good, |
| And perfectly divine |
|
With truth and peace and love,
About the supreme throne |
shall ever shine |
Of him to whose happy-making sight alone
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
Then, all this earthy grossness quit,
Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit
Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time.
The next I give is likewise an ode--a more beautiful one. Observe in
both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the
ode, being that which gives its solemnity the character yet of a song, or
rather, perhaps, of a chant.
In this he calls upon Voice and Verse to rouse and raise our imagination
until we hear the choral song of heaven, and hearing become able to sing
in tuneful response.
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