How shall I measure you, Time?
What is the answer to your riddle and rhyme?
   Is it the hours appearing on a clock,
   Or when it's filled by many ships a dock?
Is it the second hand moving slowly 'round,
Or the nighttime bells when they sound?

Do I dare to trust time with my fate,
To place myself in his hands great;
    Or would I be better off to entrust
    Myself to God, Who made me from dust,
And thereby get to know Time's business better
As I go about my business to the letter?

I ask, Is Time my friend
Who will stick with me to the end,
    Or just a veiled hoax, a cloaked heathen, whose
    Only duty is making sure I pay my dues?
Calculative contemplation is needed, for, the time is
Getting late!  Am I, or am I not, his?

Time, you are a dimly understood figure.
Your myriad shapes are of a mysterious nature.
     Come and go as you please,
     I am left to pay the fees.
Responsible for light and night,
Why, you change so often! are you my right?