O time, most dread of disciplines, who mends
not what mars us, but to woe bears increase,
as dull growth likeness unto likeness lends,
marking limiting’s limit in surcease,
upon your bank we draw ourselves in coin
so airily minted that pain’s dark thrust
mocks fitfully our minds, as to purloin
of self the better stuff of truthful trust.
Time, time, of tutors are you the supreme,
for gripped in toil of your usury,
we, paupered all, learn the seeds of doubting’s dream.
Of nought stamps this banker men to harry.
Yet faith, if it would be more than time’s fool,
no coin may show, lest mere coin, estranged, rul