Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By John Milton (1608–1674)On Time—To be set on a Clock-Case
| FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race; | |
| Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, | |
| Whose speed is but the heavy plummet’s pace; | |
| And glut thyself with what thy womb devours, | |
| Which is no more than what is false and vain, | 5 |
| And merely human 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 consumed, | 10 |
| Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss | |
| With an individual kiss; | |
| And Joy shall overtake us as a flood, | |
| When everything that is sincerely good | |
| And perfectly divine, | 15 |
| With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine | |
| About the supreme throne | |
| Of Him, to whose happy-making sight alone | |
| When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb; | |
| Then, all this earthly grossness quit, | 20 |
| Attired with stars we shall for ever sit | |
| Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, | |
| O Time. | |