God of eter­ni­ty, from Thee
Did in­fant Time his be­ing draw;
Moments and days and months and years
Revolve by Thine un­varied law.

Silent and slow they glide away;
Steady and strong the cur­rent flows,
Lost in eter­ni­ty’s wild sea,
The bound­less gulf, from whence it rose.

With it the thought­less sons of men
Before the ra­pid stream are borne
On to that ev­er­last­ing home,
Whence not one soul can e’er re­turn.

Yet while the shore on ei­ther side
Presents a gau­dy, flatt’r­ing show,
We gaze, in fond am­aze­ment lost,
Nor think to what a world we go.

Great source of wis­dom, teach my heart
To know the price of ev­ery hour
That time may bear me on to joys
Beyond its mea­sure and its pow­er.