Stay, stay sweet Time

Stay, stay, sweet Time; behold, or ere thou pass

From world to world, thou long hast sought to see,

That wonder now wherein all wonders be,

Where heaven beholds her in a mortal glass,

And thy youth past in this fair mirror see:

Behold world's beauty in her infancy,

What she was then, and thou, or ere she was.

Now pass on, Time: to after-worlds tell this,

Tell truly, Time, what in thy time hath been,

That they may tell more worlds what Time hath seen,

And heaven may joy to think on past world's bliss.

Here make a period, Time, and say, for me,

She was the like that never was, nor never more shall be.