And not to light us, on our way to scenes
Whose lustre turns their luftre into shade.
We wafte, not use our time: we breathe, not live.
Time wasted is existence, us'd is life :
And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings, and oppreffes with enormous weight.
And why? since Time was given for use, not waste,
Injoin'd to fly; with tempest, tide, and stars,
To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man;
Time's ufe was doom'd a pleasure; waste, a pain;
That man might feel his error, if unseen;
And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure:
Not, blundering, fplit on idlenels, for eafe.
Life's cares are comforts; fuch by heaven design'd;
He that has none, must make them, or be wretched.
Cares are employments; and without employ
The foul is on a rack; the rack of rest;.
To fouls most adverse; action all their joy.
Here, then, the riddle, mark'd, above, unfolds,
Then Time turns torment, when man turns a fool.
We rave, we wrestle with great Nature's plan;
We thwart the Deity; and 'tis decreed,
Who thwart his will, shall contradict their own.
Hence our unnatural quarrel with ourselves;
Our thoughts at enmity; our bosom-broil:
We push time from us, and we with him back,
Lavish of luftrums, and yet fond of life:
Life we think long, and short; death seek, and shun;
Body and foul, like peevish man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loath to part.
Oh the dark days of vanity! while here, How tafteless! and how terrible, when gone! Gone! they ne'er go; when past, they haunt us still; The fpirit walks of ev'ry day deceas'd, And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns. Nor death, nor life delights us. If time past, And time poffefsd, both pain us, what can please? That which the Deity to please ordain'd, Time us'd. The man who confecrates his hours By vig'rous effort, and an honest aim, At once he draws the sting of life and death: He walks with Nature; and her paths are peace.
Our error's cause and cure are seen: fee next
Time's nature, origin, importance, speed;
And thy great gain from urging his career.-
All-sensual man, because untouch'd, unfeen,
He looks on Time as nothing. Nothing else
Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's. Time's a god.
Thou hast ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence;
For, or against, what wonders can he do?
And will: to stand blank neuter he disdains.
Not on those terms was Time (heaven's stranger!) sent
On his his important embassy to man.
LORENZO! no: on the long destin'd hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of wondrous birth,
When the dread Sire, on emanation bent,
And big with Nature, rifing in his might,
Call'd forth creation, (for then Time was born),
By Godhead streaming through a thousand worlds;
Not on these terms, from the great days of heaven,
From old Eternity's mysterious orb,
Was Time cut off, and cast beneath the skies;
The skies, which watch him in his new abode,
Measuring his motions by revolving spheres;
That horologe machinery divine.
Hours, days, and months, and years, his children play,
Like numerous wings, around him, as he flies:
Or, rather, as unequal plumes, they shape
His ample pinions, swift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his ancient rest,
And join anew Eternity, his fire;
In his immutability to neft,
When worlds, that count his circles now, unhing'd,
(Fate the loud fignal sounding) headlong rush
To timeless night, and chaos, whence they rofe.
Why spur the speedy? why with levities
New-wing thy short, short day's too rapid flight?
Know'it thou, or what thou dost, or what is done?
Man flies from Time, and Time from man: too foon
In sad divorce this double flight must end;
And then, where are we? where, LORENZO! then,
Thy fports? thy pomps?-I grant thee, in a state
Not unambitious; in the ruffled throud,
Thy Parian tomb's triumphant arch beneath.
Has Death his his topperies fopperies? then well may Life
Put on her plume, and in her rainbow thine.
Ye well array'd! ye lilies of our land!
Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin,
(As fifter lilies might), if not fo wife
As Solomon, more sumptuous to the fight!
Ye delicate! who nothing can fupport,
Yourselves most unsupportable! for wh hom
The winter-rose must blow, the fun put on
A brighter beam in Leo: filky-loft
Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid;
And other worlds send odours, fauce, and fong,
And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign looms!
O ye LORENZOs of our age! who deem
One moment unamus'd, a misery
Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For every bauble, drivel'd o'er by sense;
For rattles, and conceits of every cast,
For change of follies, and relays of joy,
To drag you patient, through the tedious length.
Of a short winter's day; -say, fages! fay,...
Wit's oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams!
How will you weather an eternal night,
Where such expedients fail? where wit's a fool,
Mirth mourns; dreams vanish; laughter drops a tear?
O treach'rous Conscience! while she seems to sleер
On rofe and myrtle, lull'd with firen song;
While the feems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong Appetite the flacken'd rein,
And give us up to Licence, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd; -fee, from behind her fecret stand,
The fly informer minutes every fault,
And her dread diary with horror fills:
Not the grofs act alone employs her pen;
She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band,
A watchful foe! The formidable spy,
Lift'ning, o'erhears the whispers of our camp;
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And fleals our embryos of iniquity.
As all-rapacious afurers conceal
Their domsday-book, from all-consuming heirs;
Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats
Us, spendthrifts of inestimable Time;
Unnoted, notes each moment misapply'd;
In leaves more durable than leaves of leaves of brass,
Writes our whole history; which Death shall read
In every pale delinquent's private ear;
And Judgment publith: publish to more worlds
Than this; and endless age in groans refound.
LORENZO, such that fleeper in thy breast?
Such is her flumber; and her vengeance fuch,
For flighted counsel; fuch thy future peace!
And think'st thou still thou canst be wise too foon?
But why on Time so lavish is my fong?
On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school,
To teach her fons herself. Each night we die,
Each morn are born anew; each day, a life!
And shall we kill each day? If trifting kills.
Sure vice must butcher. O what heaps of flain
Cry out for vengeance on us? Time destroy'd
Is fuicide, where more than blood is spilt.
Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites,
Hell threatens; all exerts; in effort, all;
More than creation labours! - Labours more?
And is there in creation, what, amidst
This tumult univerfal, wing'd dispatch,
And ardent energy, fupinely yawns?
Man fleeps; and man alone; and man, whose fate,
Fate irreversible, entire, extreme,
Endless, hair-hung, breeze-fhaken, o'er the gulf
A moment trembles; drops! and man, for whom
All else is in alarm; max, the fole cause
Of this furrounding storm! and yet he fleeps,
As the storm rock'd to rest. -Throw years away!
Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments seize;
Heaven's on their wing: a moment we may with,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand still,
Bid him drive back his car, recall, retake
Fate's hafty prey; implore him reimport
The period paft, regive the given hour.
LORENZO, more than miracles we want:
LORENZO-O for yesterdays to come!
Such is the language of the man awake; His ardour fuch, for what oppreffes thee. And is his ardour vain? LORENZO! no: That more than miracle the gods indulge:
To-day is yesterday return'd; return'd:
Full-power'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn,
And reinstate us on the rock of peace.
Let it not share its predecessor's fate;
Nor, like its elder fifters, die a fool.
Shall it evaporate in fume? fly off
Fuliginous, and stain us deeper still?
Shall we be poorer for the plenty pour'd?
More wretched for the clemencies of heav'n?
Where shall I find him? angels! tell me where: You know him! he is near you: point him out. Shall I fee glories beaming from his brow? Or trace his footsteps by the rifing flow'rs?* Your golden wings, now hovring o'er him, shed Protection; now are waving in applaufe To that bless'd son of forefiglit! lord of fate! That awful independent on to-morrow! Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past, Whose yesterdays look backwards with a fmile; Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly; That common, but opprobrious lot! Past hours, If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight, If folly bounds our profpect by the grave; All feeling of futurity benum'd; All godlike patlion for eternals quench'd; All relish of realities expir'd; Renounc'd all correspondence with the skies; Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our defire; In sense dark-poifon'd all that ought to foar, Prone to the centre, crawling in the duft; Dismounted every great and glorious aim; Embruted every faculty divine; Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world: The world, that gulf of fouls, immortal fouls, Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire To reach the distant skies, and triumph there On thrones which shall not mourn their masters
Though we from earth; ethereal, they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man..
Who venerate themselves, the world despise.
For what, gay friend! is this efcutcheon'd world,
Which hangs out DEATH in one eternal night?
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