The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time”

“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”

- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”

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“The Paradox Of Time”

“Time goes, you say? Ah no!

Alas, Time stays, we go;

Or else, were this not so,

What need to chain the hours,

For Youth were always ours?

Time goes, you say? – ah no!

Ours is the eyes’ deceit

Of men whose flying feet

Lead through some landscape low;

We pass, and think we see

The earth’s fixed surface flee:-

Alas, Time stays, – we go!

Once in the days of old,

Your locks were curling gold,

And mine had shamed the crow.

Now, in the self-same stage,

We’ve reached the silver age;

Time goes, you say? – ah no!

Once, when my voice was strong,

I filled the woods with song

To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’;

My bird, that sang, is dead;

Where are your roses fled?

Alas, Time stays, – we go!

See, in what traversed ways,

What backward Fate delays

The hopes we used to know;

Where are our old desires?-

Ah, where those vanished fires?

Time goes, you say? – ah no!

How far, how far, O Sweet,

The past behind our feet

Lies in the even-glow!

Now, on the forward way,

Let us fold hands, and pray;

Alas, Time stays, – we go!”

- Henry Austin Dobson