THE FLIGHT OF TIME.

FROM THE SPANISH.

THE days of our happiness glide fast away,
A year seems a moment, and ages a day;
But, Fortune converting our smiles into tears,
What an age a diminutive moment appears!

Oh, Fortune! possessed of so fickle a name,—
Why only in this; art thou ever the same?
Oh, change! and bid moments of pleasure move slow,
And give eagle-plumes to the pinions of woe!

EXTENSION OF LIFE.

SUCH, such a man extends his life's short space,
And from the goal again renews the race:
For he lives twice who can at once employ

The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.

Imitated from MARTIAL by POPE.

TIME FLIES.

OLD father Time stands still for none;
This moment here, the next he's gone;
And though you speak him e'er so kind,
He never lags one step behind;

If, then, with Time you'd forward be,
You e'en must run as fast as he.

TO-MORROW.

TO-MORROW you will live, you always cry;
In what far country does to-morrow lie,
That 'tis so mighty long ere it arrive?
Beyond the Indies does this 'morrow live?

'Tis so far-fetched, this 'morrow, that I fear
"Twill be both very old and very dear.
"To-morrow I will live," the fool doth say;
To-day's too late-the wise lived yesterday.

EMBLEMS OF TIME.

TIME's a hand's breath; 'tis a tale;
'Tis a vessel under sail;

"Tis an eagle in its way,
Darting down upon its prey;
'Tis an arrow in its flight,
Mocking the pursuing sight;
'Tis a short-lived fading flower;
'Tis a momentary ray,
Smiling in a winter's day;
'Tis a torrent's rapid stream;
'Tis a shadow; 'tis a dream;
'Tis the closing watch of night,
Dying at the rising light;
'Tis a bubble; 'tis a sigh:
Be prepared, O man, to die!

FRANCIS QUARLES.

PROCRASTINATION.

WHEN Sloth puts urgent business by,
"To-morrow's a new day," she'll cry;
And all her morrows prove it true-
They're never used, and therefore new.

PROCRASTINATION.

BE wise to-day: 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled;
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

YOUNG.

ON THE PHRASE "KILLING TIME."

TIME SPEAKS.

THERE's scarce a point wherein mankind agree
So well as in their boast of killing me :

I boast of nothing; but, when I've a mind,
I think I can be even with mankind.

MISCELLANEOUS.

[Since the compilation of the foregoing, several epigrams worthy of insertion have met the compiler's notice. The following having been adopted too late for classification, are necessarily given as a miscellaneous group.]

ON THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN IN 1815.

To Spain, entranced in golden dreams,
Fair freedom comes; and tempting seems
The heav'nly apparition:

But ah! when waking, Spain essayed
To hold the all-enchanting maid,
She clasped the-Inquisition.

PICKING POCKETS.

"THESE beer-shops," quoth Barnabas, speaking in alt,
"Are ruinous-down with the growers of malt!"
"Too true," answers Ben, with a shake of the head,
"Wherever they congregate, honesty's dead.
That beer breeds dishonesty causes no wonder,
'Tis nurtured in crime-'tis concocted in plunder;
In Kent, while surrounded by flourishing crops,
I saw a rogue picking a pocket of hops."

JAMES SMITH.

ON A WOULD-BE WRITER.

YOUR prose and verse alike are bad;
Methinks you both transpose;

Your prose e'en like your verse runs mad,
And all your verse is prose.

TO A LADY, ON HER ASKING A GENTLEMAN HOW LONG HE WOULD LOVE HER.

IT is not, Celia, in our power

To say how long our love shall last;
It may be, we, within this hour,

May lose those joys we now do taste;
The blessed that immortal be,
From change in love alone are free.

Then, since we mortal lovers are,

Ask not how long our love shall last;
But, while it does, let us take care,
Each minute be with pleasure passed:
Were it not madness to deny

To live, because we're sure to die?

ON A TALKATIVE PEER.

THEY say he has no heart; but I deny it :
He has a heart-and gets his speeches by it.

S. ROGERS.

DEATH AND DR. BOLUS.

"My dart," cried Death, "I cannot find,
So now I'm quite at sea."

Quoth Dr. Bolus, "Never mind—
There, take this recipe."

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL.

IN little trades more cheats and lying
Are used in selling than in buying;
But in the great, unjuster dealing
Is used in buying than in selling.

THE BEST STOCK.

MONEY, they say, is evil's root,
But I most justly doubt it:
Can we expect good thriving fruit
From any stock without it?

NOT TO BE BELIEVED.

THE following lines were addressed to a gentleman notoriously addicted to the vice which has been euphemistically described as "the postponement of the truth for the purposes of the moment." WHOE'ER Would learn a fact from you,

Must take you by contraries :
What you deny, perhaps is true;
But nothing that you swear is.

HONEY AND WAX.

ON A SQUABBLE BETWEEN MRS. HONEY, THE ACTRESS, AND HER

HUSBAND.

THIS pair in matrimony,

Go most unequal snacks;

He gets all the Honey,

And she gets all the whacks.

JAMES SMITH.

THE CANVASS AND THE POLL.

AN IMPROMPTU WRITTEN WHILE SITTING UNDER A MARQUEE.

WHEN Parliament people petition their friends,
The state of the poll on the canvass depends;
But here we submit to a diff'rent control,-
The state of the canvas depends on the pole !

JAMES SMITH.

BLACKER THAN EGYPT.

THE following condemnatory epigram was written at the time when imprisonment for debt was rigorously carried out, and many debtors passed their whole lives in prison:

Or old, the debtor who insolvent died,

Egypt the rites of sepulture denied ;

A different trade enlightened Christians drive,
And charitably bury him alive.