"Once in Persia reigned a king Who upon his signet ring Graved a maxim true and wise, Which if held before the eyes Gave him counsel at a glance Fit for every change and chance. Solemn words, and these are they: "Even this shall pass away.""

"I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity; Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again."

"Heu! universum triduum!"

"I am any man's suitor, If any will be my tutor: Some say this life is pleasant, Some think it speedeth fast, In time there is no present, In eternity no future, In eternity no past. We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die. Who will riddle me the how and the why?"

"Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born."

"Come, Time, and teach me many years, I do not suffer in dream; For now so strange do these things seem, Mine eyes have leisure for their tears."

"He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend: Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure For life's worst ills to have no time to feel them."

"Lauriger Horatius Quam dixisti verum; Fugit euro citius Tempus edax rerum."

"Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying, Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last."

"Nick of Time!"

"In time take time while time doth last, for time Is no time when time is past."

"I see that time divided is never long, and that regularity abridges all things."

"Long ailments wear out pain, and long hopes joy."

"Too late I staid, forgive the crime, Unheeded flew the hours; How noiseless falls the foot of Time That only treads on flow'rs! What eye with clear account remarks The ebbing of his glass, When all its sands are diamond sparks That dazzle as they pass? Ah! who to sober measurement Time's happy swiftness brings, When birds of Paradise have lent Their plumage for his wings?"

"Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time."

"Goe to my Love where she is carelesse layd Yet in her winter's bowere not well awake; Tell her the joyous time will not be staid Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take."

"Time wears all his locks before, Take thou hold upon his forehead; When he flies he turns no more, And behind his scalp is naked. Works adjourn'd have many stays, Long demurs breed new delays."

"For the next inn he spurs amain, In haste alights, and skuds away, But time and tide for no man stay."

"For time would, with us, 'stead of sand, Put filings of steel in his glass, To dry up the blots of his hand, And spangle life's page as they pass. Since all flesh is grass ere 'tis hay, O may I in clover lie snug, And when old Time mow me away, Be stacked with defunct Lady Mugg!"

"Per varios præceps casus rota volvitur ævi."

"That old bald cheater, Time."

"Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality! And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore, Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable sea?"

"The flood of time is rolling on; We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone To glide in peace down death's mysterious stream. Have ye done well?"

"O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? O fearful meditation! where, alack, Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?"

"Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty's brow."

"Yet, do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young."

": No time is too short for the wicked to injure their neighbors."

"Nullum ad nocendum tempus angustum est malis."

": The swift hour flies on double wings."

"Volat ambiguis Mobilis alis hora."

"Infinita est velocitas temporis quæ magis apparet respicientibus. The swiftness of time is infinite, which is still more evident to those who look back upon the past."

"Time rolls his ceaseless course."

"Upon my lips the breath of song, Within my heart a rhyme, Howe'er time trips or lags along, I keep abreast with time!"

": Yet tremble at the slow, silent power of time."

"Doch zittre vor der langsamen, Der stillen Macht der Zeit."

": Threefold the stride of Time, from first to last: Loitering slow, the Future creepeth— Arrow-swift, the Present sweepeth— And motionless forever stands the Past."

"Dreifach ist der Schritt der Zeit: Zögernd kommt die Zukunft hergezogen, Pfeilschnell ist das Jetzt entflogen, Ewig still steht die Vergangenheit."

": You come late, yet you come!"

"Spät kommt ihr—doch ihr kommt!"

"Time flies on restless pinions—constant never. Be constant—and thou chainest time forever."

": Who knows what may be slumbering in the background of time!"

"O, wer weiss Was in der Zeiten Hintergrunde schlummert."

": Day follows on the murkiest night, and, when the time comes, the latest fruits will ripen."

"Tag wird es auf die dickste Nacht, und, kommt Die Zeit, so reifen auch die spät'sten Früchte."

": How slowly the hours pass to the unhappy."

"Que pour les malheureux l'heure lentement fuit!"

"To vanish in the chinks that Time has made."

"By many a temple half as old as Time."