Category: Time

Is there sense in all this bustle,
Rant and tear and hasty hustle?
Wouldn’t life be just as pleasant
If we took our time a bit?
All this speed and awful hurry,
All this nameless, ceaseless worry–
Wouldn’t earth turn just as smoothly
If we all slowed down a whit?

All day long from dawn to twilight,
From the cellar to the skylight,
Housewife works in maddened frenzy,
‘Til she’s on the verge of tears.
And at work her lord and master
Tries to do a little faster
Same old thing thet he’s been rushing
Every day for 20 years.

What is then our destination,
End of all our consternation?
There is only just one answer
I have ever found, to date:
It’s OBLIVION; and I’m certain
We can reech that final curtain
Juat as well by going slowly,
Without fear of being late!

Rush you on, then, world of flurry;
I for one am in no hurry
For Death to utter final sentence:
“Cough the sponge up, if you pliz.”
Death can yell and squawk and beckon,
But he’ll get good and tired, I reckon;
I don’t aim to run to meet him-
Life is short enough, as is!

by Ray Romine Sunday, September 11, 1938

0 source of contention and worry,
Tick on til you break out in chime:
You race when I’m in a hurry,
And stall when I’ve oodles of time.

Why can’t you be evil eschewing,
And turn into something sublime
That rushes when I’ve nothing doing,
And slows when I’m struggling for time?

by Ray Romine Tuesday, February 5, 1946

And so to bed: Another day has gone
To join the thousands that have passed since man,
In prehistoric days beyond our scan,
Directed his attention all upon
The sun and stars. He found the gentle swan;
Aquarius, Leo, and Aldebaran;
And so our days, our seasons, all began,
And time has plagued. us since the mastodon!

So now we rush to work, from which we dash
As swiftly home tonight, since we are preseed
For time in which to spend the cash
We’ve earned today: and–now–a quick-snatched rest.
Our lives are summed–our entire histories,
In these four words: “A little faster, please.”

by Ray Romine Monday, March 27, 1944

I buy each How-to-do-it book,
But still beyond my ken
Is this answer I can’t seem to hook:
Not so much How as, When?

by Ray Romine Saturday, November 4, 1950

Admitting my watch is a cheap one, a slight one,
Why, in a crowd, am I sure it’s the right one?

by Ray Romine Tuesday, August 25, 1953

The nights are hardly long enough for me.
Each minute is a madly flapping wing
Which has some vital message I can’t see,
It flies so swiftly. When I try to sing
My simple songs here in the quiet lee
Of evening’s hush, the baleful numbered ring
Of figures on the clock becomes a blur,
So fast the moving hands. But in the day,
My dragging leaded feet keep time with her
Who soars the tireless blue in search of prey
In slow, high turn that just the wind may stir–
So move the sunlit hours with feet of clay
To change to swifter tempo as the light
Fades into quickly gathered welcome night.

by Ray Romine Thursday, January 20, 1944

Can there be sense in all this rush?
And purpose in the flurry?
Is life so short our lack of time
Must be made up by hurry?

Well, I’ll sit back contentedly*
And enjoy the time that’s left to me!

*unless Flo reads this…

by Ray Romine Wednesday, September 10, 1947

Time is the stuff which successful men take
And budget with consummate skill;
It’s also the item my type of man makes
The Frankenstein hardest to kill.
The problem guys like me’ve let swamp’em:
How to swap ennui for wampum.

by Ray Romine Saturday, August 12, 1950

Time that hangs so heavily
Upon unbusy hands;
Time that dies unwillingly
For some, heed my demands,
And slow your wild and headlong flight.
This one would see you last–
Don’t turn, as you spin day to night,
My life into just–past.
For I maintain bullheadedly,
With fervor and persistence,
That this is quite unquestionably
My favorite existence!

by Ray Romine Friday, December 21, 1951

The end of the future is far away;
Forever’s a long, long time–
And though insignificant, every day
Is part of the cosmic climb.

So, even a comparatively little hour
May share in the scheme of things,
And a part of a second contain the power
We need for awakenings.

An age in the distance may build on today–
The present is something sublime.
The end of the future is far away;
Forever’s a long, long time.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 5, 1944