The Silken Tassel/Love and Time

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Love and Time
Stop still, O Time! run not thy sands awhile,
O passing Present! just prolong thy hours!
While Love is culling all the sweetest flowers
That gods have left behind them to beguile;

While Love sits all within his heaven-girt isle
And wields his strong yet soft soul-soothing powers,
And sips the nectar drawn from long-dried showers
Pour’d by the heavens for mortals here to smile!

—Time stops not for a moment so divine:
Already he is miles away and mocks
Love that his flowers and nectar are but dreams;

Love laughs and says: "This fleeting world be thine!
It dries, and with it all thy running streams
My throne is far above thy measuring clocks!"

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