“The days of the years of our lives are few, and swifter than a weaver’s shuttle. Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a concert we cannot stay to give. Just when we appear to have attained some proficiency we are forced to lay our instruments down. There is simply not enough time to think, to become, to perform what the constitution of our natures indicates we are capable of.”
-A.W. Tozer; Knowledge of the Holy
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Beholding how each instant flies
So swift, that, as we count, ’tis gone
Beyond recover,
Let us resolve to be more wise
Than stake our future lot upon
What soon is over.
Let none be self-deluding, none,—
Imagining some longer stay
For his own treasure
Than what today he sees undone;
For everything must pass away
In equal measure.
Jorge Manrique
Wow, thanks for posting that. It’s not often that people comment something that inspiring- so I really do appreciate it. How’d you stumble upon a 15th century poem?
As a young man I read , and memorized (1440-1479)Jorge Manrique’s Coplas on the Death of His Father:
A famous poem in Spanish early literature. What I send you is just a couple of verses, the whole poem is quite long, but very beautiful.
Thank you for your interest, here is a little more:
The Coplas on the Death of His Father,
the Grand-Master of Santiago
Let from its dream the soul awaken,
And reason mark with open eyes
The scene unfolding,—
How lightly life away is taken,
How cometh Death in stealthy guise,—
At last beholding;
What swiftness hath the flight of pleasure
That, once attained, seems nothing more
Than respite cold;
How fain is memory to measure
Each latter day inferior
To those of old.
Beholding how each instant flies
So swift, that, as we count, ’tis gone
Beyond recover,
Let us resolve to be more wise
Than stake our future lot upon
What soon is over.
Let none be self-deluding, none,—
Imagining some longer stay
For his own treasure
Than what today he sees undone;
For everything must pass away
In equal measure.
Our lives are fated as the rivers
That gather downward to the sea
We know as Death;
And thither every flood delivers
The pride and pomp of seigniory
That forfeiteth;
Thither, the rivers in their splendor;
Thither, the streams of modest worth,—
The rills beside them;
Till there all equal they surrender;
And so with those who toil on earth,
And those who guide them.
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