1. Alas! how swift the moments fly!
How flash the years along!
Scarce here, yet gone already by,
The burden of a song.
See childhood, youth, and manhood pass,
And age, with furrowed brow;
Time was—Time shall be—drain the glass—
But where in Time is now?
2. Time is the measure but of change;
No present hour is found;
The past, the future, fill the range
Of Time’s unceasing round.
Where, then is now? In realms above,
With God’s atoning Lamb,
In regions of eternal love,
Where sits enthroned I AM.
3. Then pilgrim, let thy joys and tears
On Time no longer lean;
But henceforth all thy hopes and fears
From earth’s affections wean:
To God let votive accents rise;
With truth, with virtue, live;
So all the bliss that Time denies
Eternity shall give.
Source: The Cyber Hymnal #2559
First Line: | How swift, alas, the moments fly |
Author: | John Quincy Adams |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Alas! how swift the moments fly. John Quincy Adams [Time.] Sometimes given as "How swift, alas, the moments fly," was written for the 200th anniversary of the First Congregational Church, Quincy, Sept. 29, 1839. It is found in Lyra Sacra Americana and in Putnam's Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, 1875. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.]
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)