1. All life, however long it lasts,
Its end will surely come to pass.

2. Would that before my life began,
I grazed the mountain-tops at dawn.

3. So keep before your watchful eye
The guile of fleeting days gone by.

4. For Time will snare with cruel claws
The babe, the youth with broken laws.

5. The fledgling and the fluttering bird,
The wobbly calf, the weakling herd.

6. The Day of Reckoning is sublime,
When young and old will grey with time.