De La Salle Fifth Reader Part 32

re' al ize pen' du lum dil' i gent ly sig nif' i cance auc tion eer'

per sist' ent ly in ex haust' i ble un der stood'

hope' less ly nev er the less

"GOING! GOING! GONE!"

The other day, as I was walking through a side street in one of our large cities, I heard these words ringing out from a room so crowded with people that I could but just see the auctioneer's face and uplifted hammer above the heads of the crowd.

"Going! Going! Going! Gone!" and down came the hammer with a sharp rap.

I do not know how or why it was, but the words struck me with a new force and significance. I had heard them hundreds of times before, with only a sense of amus.e.m.e.nt. This time they sounded solemn.

"Going! Going! Gone!"

"That is the way it is with life," I said to myself;--"with time." This world is a sort of auction-room; we do not know that we are buyers: we are, in fact, more like beggars; we have brought no money to exchange for precious minutes, hours, days, or years; they are given to us. There is no calling out of terms, no noisy auctioneer, no hammer; but nevertheless, the time is "going! going! gone!"

The more I thought of it, the more solemn did the words sound, and the more did they seem to me a good motto to remind one of the value of time.

When we are young we think old people are preaching and prosing when they say so much about it,--when they declare so often that days, weeks, even years, are short. I can remember when a holiday, a whole day long, appeared to me an almost inexhaustible play-spell; when one afternoon, even, seemed an endless round of pleasure, and the week that was to come seemed longer than does a whole year now.

One needs to live many years before one learns how little time there is in a year,--how little, indeed, there will be even in the longest possible life,--how many things one will still be obliged to leave undone.

But there is one thing, boys and girls, that you can realize if you will try--if you will stop and think about it a little; and that is, how fast and how steadily the present time is slipping away. However long life may seem to you as you look forward to the whole of it, the present hour has only sixty minutes, and minute by minute, second by second, it is "going! going! gone!" If you gather nothing from it as it pa.s.ses, it is "gone" forever. Nothing is so utterly, hopelessly lost as "lost time."

It makes me unhappy when I look back and see how much time I have wasted; how much I might have learned and done if I had but understood how short is the longest hour.

All the men and women who have made the world better, happier or wiser for their having lived in it, have done so by working diligently and persistently. Yet, I am certain that not even one of these, when "looking backward from his manhood's prime, saw not the specter of his mis-spent time." Now, don't suppose I am so foolish as to think that all the preaching in the world can make anything look to young eyes as it looks to old eyes; not a bit of it.

But think about it a little; don't let time slip away by the minute, hour, day, without getting something out of it! Look at the clock now and then, and listen to the pendulum, saying of every minute, as it flies,--"Going! going! gone!"

_Helen Hunt Jackson._

From "Bits of Talk." Copyright, Little, Brown & Co., Publishers.

PROSING, talking in a dull way.

In the following sentences, instead of the words in italics, use others that have the same general meaning:

I heard these words _ringing_ out from a _room_ so _crowded_ with _people_ that I could _but_ just _see_ the man's _face._ How _fast_ and _steadily_ the present time is _slipping_ away!

Punctuate the following:

Go to the ant thou sluggard consider her ways and be wise.

_51_

yearn car' ol mus' ing stee' ple mag' ic al

SEVEN TIMES TWO.

You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, How many soever they be, And let the brown meadowlark's note, as he ranges, Come over, come over to me!

Yet birds' clearest carol, by fall or by swelling, No magical sense conveys; And bells have forgotten their old art of telling The fortune of future days.

"Turn again, turn again!" once they rang cheerily, While a boy listened alone; Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily All by himself on a stone.

Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over, And mine, they are yet to be; No listening, no longing, shall aught, aught discover: You leave the story to me.

The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather, And hangeth her hoods of snow; She was idle, and slept till the suns.h.i.+ny weather: Oh, children take long to grow!

I wish and I wish that the spring would go faster, Nor long summer bide so late; And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster, For some things are ill to wait.

I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover, While dear hands are laid on my head, "The child is a woman--the book may close over, For all the lessons are said."

I wait for my story: the birds cannot sing it, Not one, as he sits on the tree; The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it!

Such as I wish it to be.

_Jean Ingelow._

"TURN AGAIN, TURN AGAIN!" Reference is here made to d.i.c.k Whittington, a poor orphan country lad, who went to London to earn a living, and who afterwards rose to be the first Lord Mayor of that city.

NOTE.--This poem is the second of a series of seven lyrics, ent.i.tled "The Songs of Seven," which picture seven stages in a woman's life. For the first of the series, "Seven Times One," see page 44 of the Fourth Reader. Read it in connection with this. "Seven Times Two" shows the girl standing at the entrance to maidenhood, books closed and lessons said, longing for the years to go faster to bring to her the happiness she imagines is waiting.

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