Say how it is that Now is never time
To live, to love, to sip the sweetest nectar.
Too often, I am weary of the climb
And each new mountain looming like a spectre
Beyond the shadow of its groaning brother
Who slows my aching feet in their ascent.
So let us loaf and loiter for another
Half-hour or so (or year) for I am spent,
Or but a minute (Time is getting on,
That shrewish harlot brandishing her whip),
And yet another day is nearly gone,
And once again, I've let my duties slip.
Alas, oh Future; you, my tyrant whore!
It seems I shall be yours forever more.
George Chadderdon © 1993