"Tomorrow" he promised his conscience;
"Tomorrow" I mean to believe;
"Tomorrow" I'll think as I ought to;
"Tomorrow" the Savior receive;
"Tomorrow" I'll sever the shackles
That hold me from heaven away;
But ever his conscience repeated
One word, and that one only, "Today.”
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow—
Thus day after day it went on,
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow—
Till youth like a vision was gone;
Till age and his passions had written
The message of fate on his brow;
And forth from the shadows came Death,
With the pitiless syllable "Now.”