The secrets of forever I’d gladly pawn
To look upon its wondrous form
To see it creep and slide and race
Through shifting sands of time and space

Amongst the treasures of the universe
It seeks its pleasures so perverse
Its monstrous form must oft be fed
With raw emotion sucked from shrivelled dead.

And so it moves amongst the stars
Sniffing out this life of ours
The peoples it has known before
Their fate is sealed - they are no more

Alone beneath the darkened skies
Starlight filters gently through my eyes
Shivers creep slowly down my spine
An echo from the distant depths of time

Small world in endless cartwheels through the void
A moment fixed with time and space alloyed
Awake all night to catch the coming day
Before my eyes the moment slips away

Flash round the sun in slow monotony
A twinkle lost against eternity
Above the silent screaming of my soul
Hark, the timehound scents its goal

No baying echos through silent space
It has no form, no fangs, no face
But as senses shrivel in your darkened eye
You’ll know the timehound just passed by.

Timehound by Steve Roberts, 1975