The West Indies, and Other Poems/To Agnes

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TO AGNES.

Reply to some Lines, beginning, 'Arrest, O Time! thy fleeting course.'

Time will not check his eager flight,
Though gentle Agnes scold,
For 'tis the Sage's dear delight
To make young Ladies old.

Then listen, Agnes, friendship sings;
Seize fast his forelock grey,
And pluck from his careering wings
A feather every day.

Adorn'd with these, defy his rage,
And bid him plough your face,
 ​For every furrow of old age
Shall be a line of grace.

Start not; old age is Virtue's prime;
Most lovely she appears,
Clad in the spoils of vanquish'd Time,
Down in the vale of years.

Beyond that vale, in boundless bloom,
The eternal mountains rise;
Virtue descends not to the tomb,
Her rest is in the skies.

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