Classic Poem

Swifter and swifter, day by day,
Down time's unquiet current hurled,
Thou passest on thy restless way,
Tumultuous and unstable world!
Thou passest on! Time hath not seen
Delay upon thy hurried path;
And prayers and tears alike have been
In vain to stay thy course of wrath!

Thou passest on, and with thee go
The loves of youth, the cares of age;
And smiles and tears, and joy and wo,
Are on thy history's troubled page!
There, every day, like yesterday,
Writes hopes that end in mockery;
But who shall tear the veil away
Before the abyss of things to be?

Thou passest on, and at thy side,
Even as a shade, Oblivion treads,

And o'er the dreams of human pride
His misty shroud forever spreads;
Where all thine iron hand hath traced
Upon that gloomy scroll to day,
With records ages since effaced,—
Like them shall live, like them decay.

Thou passest on, with thee the vain,
Who sport upon thy flaunting blaze,
Pride, framed of dust and folly's train,
Who court thy love, and run thy ways:
But thou and I,—and be it so,—
Press onwards to eternity;
Yet not together let us go
To that deep-voiced but shoreless sea.

Thou hast thy friends,—I would have mine;
Thou hast thy thoughts,—leave me my own;
I kneel not at thy gilded shrine,
I bow not at thy slavish throne:
I see them pass without a sigh,—
They wake no swelling raptures now,
The fierce delights that fire thine eye,
The triumphs of thy haughty brow.

Pass on, relentless world! I grieve
No more for all that thou hast-riven;
Pass on, in God's name,—only leave
The things thou never yet hast given;
A heart at ease, a mind at home,
Affections fixed above thy sway,
Faith, set upon a world to come,
And patience through life's little day.