Forture invention, all expedients tire, To lash the ling'ring moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer, (For Nature's voice unstifled would recall) Drives headlong tow'rds the precipice of death; Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadf made;
O what a riddle of absurdity!
Leisure is pain; takes of our chariot wheels; How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain It makes us wander; wander earth around To fly that tyrant, thought. As Atlas groan'd The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour. We cry for mercy to the next amusement; The next amusement mortgages our fields; Slight inconvenience! prisons hardly frown. From hateful Time if prisons set us free. Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief, We call him cruel; years to moments shrink, Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd. To man's false opties (from his folly false) Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings, And seems to creep, decrepit with his age; Behold him, when past by; what then is seen, But his broad pinions swifter than the winds? And all mankind, in contradiction strong, Rueful, aghast! cry out on his career.
Leave to thy foes these errors, and these ills; To mature just, their cause and cure explore. Not short heav'n's bounty, boundless our expense; No niggard, nature; men are prodigals.
We waste, not use our time; we breathe, not live. Time wasted is existence, used is life.
And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings, and oppresses 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 use 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, blund'ring, split on idleness for ease. Life's cares are comforts; such by heav'n design'd; He that has none, must make them, or be wretched. Cares are employments; and without employ The soul is on a rack; the rack of rest, To souls 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 quarrels with ourselves; Our thoughts at enmity; our bosom-broils; We push time from us, and we wish him back; Lavish of lustrums, and yet fond of life;
Life we think long, and short; Death seek and shun; Body and soul like peevish man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loth to part.
Oh the dark days of vanity! while here, Iow tasteless! and how terrible, when gone! one! they ne'er go; when past, they haunt us still; The spirit walks of ev'ry day deceas'd;
And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
Nor death, nor life delight us. If time past, And time possest, both pain us, what can please? That which the Deity to please ordain'd,
Time us'd. The man who consecrates 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: see next Time's Nature, Origin, and Importance, Speed; And thy great gain from urging his career.- All-sensual man, because untouch'd, unseen, He looks on Time as nothing. Nothing else Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's--Time's a god. Hast thou ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence? For, or against, what wonders he can do! And will: to stand blank neuter he disdains. Not on those terms was Time (heav'ns stranger!) sent On his important embassy to man.
LORENZO MO: 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, rising in his might, Call'd forth Creation (for then Time was born) By Godhead streaming through a thousand worlds; Not on those 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 num'rous 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 antient rest, And join anew Eternity, his sire; In his immutability to nest,
When worlds, that count his circles now, unhing'd, (Fate the loud signal sounding) headlong rush To timeless night and chaos, whence they rose,
Why spur the speedy? Why with levities
New wing thy short, short day's 100 rapid fight? Know'st thou, or what thou dost, or what is done? Man flies from Time, and Time from man; too soon In sad divorce this double flight must end:
And then, where are we? where, LORENZO, then Thy sports? thy pomps ?-1 grant thee, in a state Not unambitious; in the ruffled shroud, Thy Parian tomb's triumphant arch beneath. Has Death his fopperies? Then well may life Put on her plume, and in her rainbow shine. Ye well-array'd! Ye lilies of our land! Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin, (As sister lilies might) if not so wise As Solomon, more sumptuous to the sight! Ye delicate! who nothing can support, Yourselves most insupportable! for whom The winter rose must blow, the sun put on A brighter beam in Leo: silky-soft
Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid; And other worlds send odours, sauce, and song, And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreigu looms! 0 ye LORENZOS of our age! who deem One moment unamused, a misery
Not made for feeble man! who call aloud For ev'ry bauble drivell'd o'er by sense; For rattles, and conceits of ev'ry cast, For change of follies, and relays of joy, To drag your patient through the tedious length Of a short winter's day-say, sages! say, Wit's oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams! How will you weather an eternal night,
Where such expedients fail?
2 O treach'rous Conscience! while she seems to sleep On rose and myrtle, lull'd with syren song;
While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong Appetite the slacken'd rein, And give us up to license, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd;- -see from behind her secret stand, afhand The sly informer minutes ev'ry fault, And her dread diary with horror fills. Not the gross act alone employs her She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band, A watchful foe! the formidable spy, List'ning, o'er hears the whispers of our camp: Our dawning purposes of heart explores, And steals our embryos of iniquity.
As all-rapacious usurers conceal.
Their doomsday-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 brass, Writes our whole history; which Death shall read In ev'ry pale delinquent's private ear;
And Judgment publish; publish to more worlds. Than this; and endless age in groans resound. LORENZO, such that Sleeper in thy breast! Such is her slumber; and her vengeance such For slighted counsel; such thy future peace! And think'st thou still thou canst be wise too soon? But why on Time so lavish is my song? On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school, To teach her sons herself. Each night we die, Each morn are born anew: each day, a life! And shall we kill each day? If trifling kills; Sure vice must butcher. O what heaps of slain. Cry out for vengeance on us! Time destroy'd Is Suicide, where more than Blood is spilt. Time flies, death urges, knells call, heav'n invites, Hell threatens: all exerts; in effort, all; More than creation labours!-labours more?
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