On Time

Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,

Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,

Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;

And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,

Which is no more then what is false and vain,

And meerly mortal 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 consum'd,

Then long Eternity shall greet our

With an individual kiss;

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,

When every thing that is sincerely

And perfectly divine,

With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever

About the supreme

Of him, t'whose happy-making sight alone,

When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall clime,

Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,

Attir'd with Stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.'It appears from the Manuscript that the poet had written "To be set on a clock-case."(line 18: happy-making sight...):

The plain English of "
beatific vision."~ Th.

Newton,

Milton's Works, 2nd edition, 1753.