Before the interval brings the pause,
The meantime, meanwhile, the ad interim:
The pedente lite, the provisional break
for the time being, for the nonce -

That makes you endure, last, abide,
Maintain steadfast for donkey's years
The lengthening vista of human time,
All your born days, hour after hour -
Till all is flit, fly, and fleet,
Two shakes of a lamb or monkey's tail;
Gone like a shadow, gone like a dream,
Burst like a bubble - short, and sweet!

For all's forever, constant, immortal,
Deathless, imperishable without bound
Ore a sempre - perpetually perennial
Knowing no limit, knowing no end.
While in the twinkling bat of an eye,
In a jiff - like a shot out of Ulster!
Afore you utter 'Goody Snatch! Witch!'
Time has been plucked by the Swooper.

Till what's left? Calends & records,
Annals & diaries & journals of verse,
Almanacs, chronicles, signed and dated
By Greenwich Time & tolling Big Ben -
Both mistimed, misdated, misleading,
Prochronic or anachronically false ...
for I am true Time - I am a neverness,
I come before, and I follow all.

NEW and OLD

All that is new, novel, and fresh,
Newfangled modern, firsthand & vernal,
Abreast of the times, fin de siecle,
Up-to-the-minute latest in fashion: