1 It is not time that flies;
‘Tis we, ‘tis we are flying.
It is not life that dies;
‘Tis we, ‘tis we are dying.
Time and eternity are one;
Time is eternity begun;
Time changes, but without decay;
‘Tis we alone who pass away.

2 It is not truth that flies;
‘Tis we, ‘tis we are flying.
It is not faith that dies;
‘Tis we, ‘tis we are dying.
O ever-during Faith and Truth,
Whose youth is age, whose age is youth,
Twin stars of immortality,
Ye cannot perish from the sky.

3 It is not hope that flies;
‘Tis we, ‘tis we are flying.
It is not hope that dies;
‘Tis we, ‘tis we are dying.
Ye streams that have in heav’n your birth,
Ye glide in gentle joy through earth;
We fade like flow’re beside you sown,—
Ye are still flowing, flowing on.

4 Yet we but die to live,
It is from death we’re flying.
Forever lives our life;
For us there is no dying:
We die but as the spring-time dies,
In summer’s golden joy to rise.
These be our days of vernal bloom;
Our harvest is beyond the tomb.