Take advantage of your opportunities before it is too late, for Life is short and time is swift. The proverb comes from Robert Herrick’s poem To the Virgins, to make Much of Time. Here are the first and last of the four stanzas:
Gather ye rosebuds while you may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.Than be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.