SUNDIAL MOTTOES.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13906, 3 December 1910, Page 7

SUNDIAL MOTTOES.

In New Zealand the formal gardon tbat affords the most a.jypropriaie settine for a sundial is not at all common. A sundial forms, however, a picturescme feature of any large pardon with spacious lawns. Its old-world look convoys the suggestion of other and older times, and yet without appearing an anachronism,, for gardens belong to rll ages. Quite a literature has grown up round the sundial, and the recent request by -a correspondent of an English paper for appropriate sundial inscriptions .-produced many susreestions. Most of tlie mottoes 2;i ven below are taken from old sundials:— A. Wolverharnpton correspondent once saw the following :— "Watch and Pray. Time flies away." Another writes:—l know of no more a,ppropriate motto for a sundial than: — "Horas non nnmero nisi ferenas"; (This is carved on the sundial in the Christehurch Public Gardens) or. if the English version is preferred :— "I only count tho happy hours." E.M.. (Taunton) suggests the following :— "I count only the hours that are sereno." — Hazlitt's Eaaay "On a Sundial." Other suggestions are:— "Lux et umbra vicissim «ed semper amor." ("Light and shade by turn,- but always love.") "See the shadow on the dial, In the lot of everyone, Marks the passing of the trial, Proves the presence of a sun." —Mrs Browning. "Let others tell of storms and showers, I'll only count the eunny hours." "Set mc right and use roe well. Then I the time to you will tell." "Nunc sol, nunc umbra." ("Now sna* now shade.") "Light is the shadow of Godl" "I take no note of time but when tho eun is shining." "Count that day lost whose low descending sun Sees from thy hand no worthy action done." "Tempua edax rernm." ("Time tho devonrer.") "Hostel Oh Hnste! Thou Slucgard, Haetei The Present is already Past. "Thus the Glory of the World paas'es away." "I am a Shade—■ A Shadow, too, art Thou. I mark the Time, ' Saye! Gossip! Doeat Thou boo?" "See, and Begono about Your Business!" "Hours fly. Flowers die. 1 New days, New ways Pass by. Love stays." "Time flows by and we grow old with the silent years." "Tyme wanes away, As flowers decays. ' "Come what may, Time and tho hour run through the roughest day." "I stand amid ye summer flowrea, To tell ye passage of yo houree. When winter steals ye flowrea away, I tell ye passage of their day. O man! flesbe is but as grasse, Like cummer flowres thy life shall passe.' "Time tries a." "Time pesseth swift away. Our life is frail and we may die to-day.