Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more. Our outward act, indeed, admits restraint: dem 'Tis not in things o'er thought to domineer;
Guard well thy thought: our thoughts are heard in
On all important time, through every age, b Tho'much, and warm, the wise have urg'd; the man Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour.mort 'I've lost a day' the prince who nobly cried, Had been an emperor without his crown; Of Rome? say rather lord of human race! He spoke as if deputed by mankind. So should all speak; so reason speaks in all: From the soft whispers of that God in man, Why fly to folly, why to frenzy fly For rescue from the blessings we possess? Time, the supreme! -Time is eternity: Pregnant with all eternity can give; Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile. Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth A pow'r ethereal, only not adored.
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.lt/books/content?id=d-PWEqWY5mYC&hl=lt&output=html_text&pg=PA25&img=1&zoom=3&q=Omnipotence&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U0tyxrMtFpBxxfXj0L6Sm56KaSqAQ&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=849,869,55,117)
Ah! how unjust to Nature and himself Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man! Like children babbling nonsense in their sports, We censure Nature for a span too short; That span too short we tax as tedious too; Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lash the lingering moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainless art! our furious charioteer efeit (For Nature's voice unstifled would recall),dP Drives headlong towards the precipice of death, Death most our dread; death thus more dreadful O what a riddle of absurdity! Amos on [made; Leisure is pain: takes off 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 optics (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 Nature 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, Enjoin'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 hath none must make them, or be wretched. Cares are employments; and without employ
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 unnat'ral quarrel with ourselves; Our thoughts at enmity; our bosom-broil; 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 loath to part.
O the dark days of vanity! while here How tasteless, and how terrible when gone! Gone! they ne'ergo; 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 used. 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, 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 can he do! And will: to stand blank neuter he disdains. [sent Not on those terms was Time (Heav'n's stranger On his important embassy to man. Lorenzo! no: on the long-destined 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 heav'n. 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. [play, Hours, days, and months, and years, his children 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 ancient rest, And join anew Eternity his sire; In his immutability to nest,
When worlds, that count his circles now, unhinged, (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 too rapid flight? 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? I 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, framed in foreign looms! O 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 every 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! brA Wit's oracles; say, dreamers of gay dreams; How will you weather an eternal night
Where such expedients fail?
O treach'rous Conscience! while she seems to
On rose and myrtle, lull'd with siren song; While she seem 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, The sly informer minutes ev'ry fault, And her dread diary with horror fills. Not the gross act alone employs her pen: She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band, A watchful foe! the formidable spy, List'ning, o'erhears the whispers of our camp, Our dawning purposes of art explores, And steals our embryos of iniquity. As all-rapacious usurers conceal
« AnkstesnisTęsti » |