PASSING TIME

See how time’s unrelenting flood

Like a great tidal river flows,

Bears all our human life away,

We helpless stand, time swiftly goes.

Nor will time for mankind delay

“Tis fixed by God’s unchanging laws;

Unpityingly it rolls along,

Nor brooks one single moment’s pause.

Incessantly,by day and night,

Unseen, unheard it rushes on,

Scarce it arrives, but it is past

Ere we can say ” ‘Tis here!” ’tis gone.

But when time’s transient reign is done

And in eternity absorbed;

Christ will be seen upon His throne

In power divine, and light, full-orbed.

Then will the Man who died below,

Be glorified in heaven above;

And all the ransomed join to praise

The Lord of life, the King of love.

Broken will be the bonds of time,

And blood-washed souls will all be free

To see and serve the sinner’s Friend,

And sing through all eternity.

Norman R. Perry