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Subject Area: Literature
Collection: Banned Books
Topic: Epic Literature

On Time. - John Milton, The Poetical Works of John Milton [1900]

Edition used:

The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited after the Original Texts by the Rev. H.C. Beeching M.A. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900).

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On Time.

  • Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
  • Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
  • Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;
  • And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,
  • Which is no more then what is false and vain,
  • And meerly mortal dross;
  • So little is our loss,
  • So little is thy gain.
  • For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
  • And last of all, thy greedy self consum’d,10
  • Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
  • With an individual kiss;
  • And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
  • When every thing that is sincerely good
  • And perfectly divine,
  • With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
  • About the supreme Throne
  • Of him, t’whose happy-making sight alone,
  • When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall clime,
  • Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,20
  • Attir’d with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
  • Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.