- Full Text
- Seize mortals seize the transient hour
Improve each moment as it flies
Life’s a short Summer, man a flow’r
He dies, alas how soon he dies.
- Listed on Page Number
- 288
- Sampler Worked By
- Maria Chamless Ellet
- Date of Sampler
- 1805
- Place Sampler Made
- Salem, NJ
- Sampler Listed on Page
- 154
- Author/Publication/Country/Date
- Johnson, Samuel. “Winter an Ode,” The Gentleman’s Magazine, London: E.Cave, 1747, Vol 17, pg. 588
- Notes
- Also Stitched by:
King, Harriet, c. 1813, Boston, MA, pg. 184;
Stanton, Mary, 1825, n.p., pg 226.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Gentleman_s_Magazine/VEMDAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=winter
Our sampler varies the first line of Johnson’s poem which originally begins, “Catch then, O! catch the transient hour,” otherwise the stanza is the same.
This stanza appears with the variation of “Seize mortals seize the transient hour,” uncredited to Johnson on pg. 255 of a 1799 anthology, The English Reader…by Lindley Murray. A collection of poetry and prose “…designed to assist young persons to read with propriety and effect…” which went through many editions.