Life and Death and Time

Life is a lovely girl
Who dances on silver feet;
Leaves in a windy swirl.
Flowers perfumed sweet.
Life is a man in his prime,
Life is the wolf on the hill,
Her song as the moon does climb,
The deer that is her kill.

Time is a sword which divides
All that we have and are
From all that we were, and hides
What we shall see afar.
Time is a silver stag
That we are constrained to chase.
Time is a greydead hag
Who once had a lovely face.

Death is a table spread
For no man's appetite;
Unlit candles that shed
Darkness instead of light.
Death is a dark-eyed queen
Who holds all men in sway.
Death is a hunter keen
Who never loses his prey.

Life and Death and Time:
These are the three we meet
No matter how high we climb,
No matter how strong our seat.
These are the bounds we are set
When first we take a breath,
And further we cannot get
Than Life and Time and Death.

Life is the gift we'd choose,
If ever we had a choice;
Time is the thing we use,
Thinking we have a voice;
Death is the fate we'd shun,
That comes to every man:
These three that are really one,
Start and finish and span.

Life is a silver sword,
Time is the hilt we hold
In fealty to that lord
Who cannot be foresold.
Death is the edge of the blade
(Though sometimes the point will do)
Whose stroke cannot be stayed,
Or aim put out of true.