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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  On Time—To be set on a Clock-Case

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By John Milton (1608–1674)

On Time—To be set on a Clock-Case

 
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,        5
And merely human dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain!
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,        10
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When everything that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,        15
With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine
About the supreme throne
Of Him, to whose happy-making sight alone
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb;
Then, all this earthly grossness quit,        20
Attired with stars we shall for ever sit
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee,
      O Time.