Leave to thy foes these errors, and these ils; To nature just, their cause and cure explore. Not short heav'ns bounty, boundless our expence ;) No niggard, nature; men are prodigals. We waste (not use) our time; we breath, not live. Time wasted is existence, us'd 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 labor 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 the 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 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 loth to part.
Oh the dark days of vanity! while here, How tasteless! and how terrible when gone : Gone! 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
At once he draws the sting of life and death; He walks with nature: and her paths are peace.
Our errors 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. Not on those terms was Time (Heav'n's stranger) sent On his important embassy to man. Lorenzo! no: on the long-destin'd hour, From everlasting ages growing ripe, That memorable hour of wond'rous 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 thro' 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.
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 ancient 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 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 sumpt'ous 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
Favonious breathe still softer, or be chid, And other worlds send odors, sauce, and song, 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 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 thro' 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?
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 licence, 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 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 labors! - Labors more. And is there in creation, what, amidst This tumult universal, wing'd dispatch, And ardent energy, supinely yawns?- Man sleeps; and man alone; and man, whose fate, Fate, irreversible, entire, extreme,
Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulph A moment trembles; drops! and man, for whom All else is in alarm! man, the sole cause Of this surrounding storm! and yet he sleeps, . As the storm rock'd to rest.-Throw years away? Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments seize; Heav'n's on their wing: a moment we may wish, When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand still, Bid him drive back his car, and re-import The period past, re-give the given hour. Lorenzo, more than miracles we want; Lorenzo-O for yesterdays to come! Such is the language of the man awake;
His ardor such, for what oppresses thee. And is his ardor 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 sisters, 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 see glories beaming from his brow, Or trace his footsteps by the rising flow'rs? Your golden wings, now hov'ring o'er him, shed Protection; now, are waving in applause To that blest son of foresight! lord of fate! That awful independent on to-morrow! Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past; Whose yesterdays look backward with a smile; 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 prospect by the grave, All feeling of futurity benumbed; All godlike passion for eternals quench'd; All relish of realities expir'd; Renounc'd all correspondence with the skies: Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar; Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; Dismounted ev'ry great and glorious aim; Embruted ev'ry faculty divine; Heart-bury'd in the rubbish of the world. The world, that gulph of souls, immortal souls, Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire To reach the distant skies, and triumph there On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters
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