Haeralis
Puritan Board Freshman
Pres. Adams wrote this beautiful and profoundly Christian poem on the fleetingness of time. In this poem, Adams captured the elusiveness of the present moment and the importance of God's atoning lamb—the great I AM—for us to have any permanence in the midst of time's unceasing movement.
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;
But where in Time is now?
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.
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.
The final lines are so powerful: "To God let votive accents rise; with truth, with virtue live; so all the Bliss that Time denies, Eternity shall give."
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;
But where in Time is now?
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.
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.
The final lines are so powerful: "To God let votive accents rise; with truth, with virtue live; so all the Bliss that Time denies, Eternity shall give."