Time driveth onward fast,/ And in a little while our lips are dumb./ Let us alone. What is it that will last?/ All things are taken from us, and become/ Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.

Who loves not a false imagining, an unreal character in us; but looking through all the rubbish of our imperfections, loves in us the divine ideal of our natures - not the man that we are, but the angel that we may be.

Who loves not a false imagining, an unreal character in us; but looking through all the rubbish of our imperfections, loves in us the divine ideal of our natures - not the man that we are, but the angel that we may be.

God gives us love. Something to love/ He lends us; but, when love is grown/ To ripeness that on which it throve/ Falls off, and love is left alone.

As on this whirligig of Time/ We circle with the seasons.

Nourishing a youth sublime/ With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time.