Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.

Cowley’s couplet compresses a metaphysical meditation on time into a paradox: if the past is gone and the future not yet real, then lived reality is only the present—an “eternal now.” The phrase gestures toward philosophical and theological traditions (Stoic, Augustinian, and Christian devotional writing) that treat temporal succession as secondary to a more fundamental, ever-present reality. Read this way, the lines can be taken as counsel against anxiety and regret, urging attention to the only moment one can actually inhabit. At the same time, “eternal now” can imply a divine perspective in which all times are present at once, making human notions of “before” and “after” ultimately provisional.