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Metrical essays

on subjects of history and imagination. By Charles Swain
 
 

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161

TIME.

On speeds the dark sepulchral flow of Time,
Its depths unsearchable as the vast sea,
Its goal—the harbour of eternity,
The stormless beauty of a heavenly clime:
What know the neighbouring shores of its career?
I hear a voice, as of the trumpet's breath,
Replying “All we know of Time—is death!—
But we have trust in God and do not fear.”
What feel the buried dead of its high power?—
A voice comes answering from the charnel-land—
“Man! seek not thou the doom Time may command,
That will thy God show in his own good hour!”
Then Time, unawed I mark thy fatal roll,
Thou hast no power o'er the immortal soul!