Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HE TOOK TIME TO DIE, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HE TOOK TIME TO DIE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There was an old fellow who never had time
Last Line: He found time to die.
Subject(s): Death; Time; Dead, The


There was an old fellow who never had time
For a fresh morning look at the Volume sublime,
Who never had time for the soft hand of prayer
To smooth out the wrinkles of labor and care;
Who could not find time for that service so sweet
At the altar of home where the dear ones all meet,
And never found time with the people of God
To learn the good way that the fathers have trod:
But he found time to die;
Oh, yes!
He found time to die.

This busy old fellow, too busy was he
To linger at breakfast, at dinner, or tea,
For the merry small chatter of children and wife,
But led in his marriage a bachelor life;
Too busy for kisses, too busy for play,
No time to be loving, no time to be gay;
No time to replenish his vanishing health,
No time to enjoy his swift-gathering wealth;
But he found time to die;
Oh, yes!
He found time to die.

This beautiful world had no beauty for him;
Its colors were black and its sunshine was dim.
No leisure for woodland, for river, or hill,
No time in his life just to think and be still;
No time for his neighbors, no time for his friends,
No time for those highest immutable ends
Of the life of a man who is not for a day,
But, for worse or for better, forever and aye;
But he found time to die;
Oh, yes!
He found time to die.





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