Time, And Thy Charms, Thou Fanciest Will Redeem Yon Aweless Libertine From Rooted Vice. Misleading Thought! Has He Not Paid The Price, His Taste For Virtue? - Ah, The Sensual Stream Has Flow'D Too Long. - What Charms Can So Entice, What Frequent Guilt So Pall, As Not To Shame The Rash Belief, Presumptuous And Unwise, That Crimes Habitual Will Forsake The Frame? - [1]Thus, On The River'S Bank, In Fabled Lore, The Rustic Stands; Sees The Stream Swiftly Go, And Thinks He Soon Shall Find The Gulph Below A Channel Dry, Which He May Safe Pass O'Er. - Vain Hope! - It Flows - And Flows - And Yet Will Flow, Volume Decreaseless, To The Final Hour. 1: "Rusticus Exspectat Dum Defluit Amnis: At Ille Labitur, Et Labetur In Omne Volubilis 'Vum." Horace.