

Time Hastens On
Time hastens on, and as it wings its flight,
eternity draws nearer day by day.
Say, does this thought inspire you with delight,
or fill your soul with sorrow and dismay?
Do vain regrets your happiness destroy,
and from your bosom wring repeated sighs?
Or can your poor heart look with peaceful joy
on the bright prospect which before you lies?
Do all your joys and pleasures spring alone
from the brief space in which we move and live?
Have you never known the power and sweetness
a better and eternal world can give?
Are all your wishes centred on this earth?
Is Heaven to you a strange and unknown shore?
Unhappy man! What will this world be worth,
when life departs, and death is at the door?
Imagine yourself arrived at that dread goal,
you, having strayed so far somehow!
Ponder and then ask yourself: „My soul,
what can a life like this avail me now?“
Your time has fled, your pulse has ceased to beat,
the pleasant light has faded from your eyes,
an open grave is yawning at your feet,
above your head no open paradise.
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