Part 4 — ON THE HURRY OF THIS TIME
Reading edition
With slower pen men used to write, Of old, when "letters" were "polite"; In Anna's or in George's days, They could afford to turn a phrase, Or trim a struggling theme aright.
They knew not steam; electric light Not yet had dazed their calmer sight;— They meted out both blame and praise With slower pen.
Too swiftly now the Hours take flight! What's read at morn is dead at night: Scant space have we for Art's delays, Whose breathless thought so briefly stays, We may not work—ah! would we might!— With slower pen.
Austin Dobson [1840-1921]