TIME. 33 I 



Where are the heroes of the ages past ? 



Where the brave chieftains, where the mighty ones 



Who flourish'd in the infancy of days ? 



All to the grave gone down. On their fallen fame 



Exulting, mocking at the pride of man, 



Sits grim Forgetftilness. — The warrior's arm 



Lies nerveless on the pillow of its shame ; 



Hush'd is his stormy voice, and quench'd the bla2e 



Of his red eye-ball. — Yesterday his name 



Was mighty on the earth, — To-day — 'tis what ? 



The meteor of the night of distant years. 



That flash'd unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld. 



Musing at midnight upon prophecies, 



Who at her lonely lattice saw the gleam 



Point to the mist-poised shroud, then quietly 



Closed her pale lips, and locked the secret up 



Safe in the charnel's treasures. 



how weak 

 Is mortal man ! how^ trifling — how confined 

 His scope of vision. Pufled with confidence, 

 His phrase grows big with immortality, 

 And he, poor insect of a summer's day, 

 Dreams of eternal honours to his name ; 

 Of endless glory and perennial bays. 

 He idly reasons of eternity. 

 As of the train of ages, — when, alas ! 

 Ten thousand thousand of his centuries 

 Are, in comparison, a little point, 



Too trivial for accompt. it is strange, 



'Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies ; 

 Behold him proudly view some pompous pile, 

 Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies, 

 And smile and say, " My name shall live with this 

 'Till Time shall be no more ;" while at his feet. 

 Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust 

 Of the fallen fabric of the other day 

 Preaches the solemn lesson : He should know, 

 That time must conquer — That the loudest blast 

 That ever fiU'd Renown's obstreperous trump 

 Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires. 



