| WHEN I was young the days were long, | |
| Oh, long the days when I was young: | |
| So long from morn to evenfall | |
| As they would never end at all. | |
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| Now I grow old Time flies, alas! | 5 |
| I watch the years and seasons pass. | |
| Time turns him with his fingers thin | |
| A wheel that whirls while it doth spin. | |
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| There is no time to take one’s ease, | |
| For to sit still and be at peace: | 10 |
| Oh, whirling wheel of Time, be still, | |
| Let me be quiet if you will! | |
| |
| Yet still it turns so giddily, | |
| So fast the years and seasons fly, | |
| Dazed with the noise and speed I run | 15 |
| And stay me on the Changeless One. | |
| |
| I stay myself on Him who stays | |
| Ever the same through nights and days: | |
| The One Unchangeable for aye, | |
| That was and will be: the one Stay, | 20 |
| |
| O’er whom Eternity will pass | |
| But as an image in a glass; | |
| To whom a million years are nought,— | |
| I stay myself on a great Thought. | |
| |
| I stay myself on the great Quiet | 25 |
| After the noises and the riot; | |
| As in a garnished chamber sit | |
| Far from the tumult of the street. | |
| |
| Oh, wheel of Time, turn round apace! | |
| But I have found a resting-place. | 30 |
| You will not trouble me again | |
| In the great peace where I attain. | |
