C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Time

I SAW a mighty river, wild and vast,

Whose rapid waves were moments, which did glide

So swiftly onward in their silent tide,

That ere their flight was heeded, they were past;

A river, that to death’s dark shores doth fast

Conduct all living with resistless force,

And though unfelt, pursues its noiseless course,

To quench all fires in Lethe’s stream at last.

Its current with creation’s birth was born;

And with the heaven’s commenced its march sublime,

In days and months, still hurrying on untired.

Marking its flight, I inwardly did mourn,

And of my musing thoughts in doubt inquired

The river’s name: my thoughts responded, Time.