Beware, Lorenzo! a flow fudden death...
How dreadfu! that deliberate furprize!
Be wife to-day; 'tis madnefs to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wifdom is push'd out of life.
Procraftination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vaft concerns of an eternal scene.
If not fo frequent, would not This be strange?
That 'tis fo frequent, This is ftranger still.

I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire.
Dark, though not blind, like thee, Mæonides!
390 Or Milton thee; ah, could I reach your ftrain]
Or His, who made Mæonides our Own.
Man too He fung: immortal man I fing;
Oft burfts my fong beyond the bounds of life;
What now, but immortality can please? 455
O had He prefs'd his theme, puriued the track,
Which opens out of darknefs into day!
O had he mounted on his wing of fire,
Soar'd where I fink, and fung immortal man!
How had it bleft mankind, and rescued me! 460

395

Of man's miraculous miftakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themfelves the compliment to think
They one day fhall not drivel: and their pride
On this reverfion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future felves applaud;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead! 406
*1 ime lodg❜d in their own hands is folly's vails:
That lodg'd in fates, to wildem they confign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they poftpone ;
is not in folly, not to fcorn a fool;
And fcarce in human wisdom, to do more.
All promife is poor dilatory man,

410

And that through every stage: when young, in-
deed,

In full content we, fometimes, nobly reft,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only with,
As dutcous fons, our fathers were more wife.
At thirty man fufpects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At ffy chides his infamous delay,
Puthes his prudent purpose to refolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Refolves; and re-refolves; then dies the fame.

This midnight centinel, with clarion fhrill,
Emblem of that which shall awake the dead,
Rouse fouls from flumber, into thoughts of heaven.
Shall I too weep? Where then is fortitude?
And fortitude abandon'd, where is man?
I know the terms on which he fees the light;
He that is born, is lifted; life is war;
Eternal war with woe. Who bears it beft,
420 Deferves is leaft-On other themes I'll dwell,
Lorenzo! let me turn my thoughts on thee,
And thine, on themes may profit; preft there,
Where moft the need. Themes, too, the genuine
growth

And why? Because he thinks him felf immortal. All men think all men mortal, but Themselves; Themselves, when fome alarming fhock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the fudden dread;

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon clofe; where, paft the shaft, no trace is found.

ΤΟ

Of dear Philander's duft. He thus, though dead,
May ftill befriend-What themes? Time's won-
drous price,

Death, Friendship, and Philander's final scene.
So could I touch thefe themes, as might obtain
Thine car, nor leave thy heart quite difengag'd,
The good deed would delight me; half imprefs
On my dark cloud an Iris; and from grief
Call glory-Doft thou mourn Philander's fate?
I know thou fay'ft it: Says thy life the fame ?
He mourns the dead, who lives as they defire.
Where is that thirst, that avarice of Time,
(0 glorious avarice!) thought of death infpires,
As rumour'd robberies endear our gold?

25

Time! than gold more facred; more a load
Than lead, to fools; and fools reputed wife.
What moment granted men without account?
What years are fquander'd, wifidom's debt unpaid
Our wealth in days, all due to that discharge.
Haste, hafte, he lies in wait, he's at the door,
Infidious Death! fhould his strong hand arreft,
No compofition sets the prisoner free.
35
Eternity's inexorable chain

Fast binds; and vengeance claims the full arrear.
How late I, fhudder'd on the brink! how late
Life call'd for her laft refuge in despair!
That Time is mine, O Mead! to thee I owe

Here then, the riddle, mark'd above, unfolds;
Then time turns torment, when man turns a fool.
We rave, we wreftle, with Great Nature's Plan;
We thwart the Deity; and 'tis decreed,
Who thwart his will, fhall contradict their own.
Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves; 170
Our thoughts at enmity; our bofom-broil;
We push Time from us, and we with him back:
Lavish of luftrums, and yet fond of life;
Life we think. long, and fhort; Death fock, and
fhun:

Body and foul, like peevith man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loth to part.

173

Our error's catife and cure ate feen: See next
Time's Nature, Origin, Importance, Spees;
And thy great Gain from urging his career. --
All-fenfual man, because untouch'd, unfeen,
He looks on Time as nothing. Nothing elle
Is truly man's; 'tis fortune'sTime's a god
Haft thou ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence;
For, or again, what wonders he can do!
And will: To ftand blank neuter he difdains.
Not on thefe terms was Time (heaven's stranger!)

fent

On his important embassy to man.
Lorenzo no: on the long-deftin'd hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,

195

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,) 203
By Godhead ftreaming through a thousand worlds;
Not on thofe terms, from the great days of heaven,
From old eternity's myflerious orb,

Know't thou, or what thou doft, or what is done? 225

Man flies from Time, and Time from man; too foon

235

In fad divorce this double flight muft end;
And then, where are we? where; Lorenzo! then
Thy fports? thy pomps?--I grant thee, in a state
Not unambitious; in the rifled throud,
230
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 fpin,
(As fifter lilies might) if not fo wife
As Solomon, more fumptuous to the fight!
Ye delicate! who nothing can fupport,
Yourselves moft infupportable! for whom
The winter rofe must blow, the fun put on
A brighter beam in Leo; filky-foft
Favonius breathe ftill fofter, or be chid;
And other worlds fend odours, fauce, and fong,
And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign looms!
ye Lorenzos of our age! who deem
One moment unamus'd, a mifery

240

245

Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For every bawble drivel'd o'er by fenfe;
For rattles, and conceits of every caft,
For change of follies, and relays of joy,

250

To drag your patient through the tedious length
Of a short winter's day-fay, fages! fay,
Wit's oracles! fay, dreamers of gay dreams!
How will you weather an eternal night,
Where fuch expedients fail?

255

O treacherous Confcience? while the feems to fleep

260

265

On refe and myrtle, lull'd with fyren fong;
While the feems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong Appetite the facken'd rein,
200 And give us up to licence, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd-fee, from behind her fecret ftand,
The ny 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,
Liftening, o'erhears the whifpers of our camp.
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And fteals our embryos of iniquity.
As all rapacious ufurers conceal
Their doomsday-book from all-consuming heirs ;
Thus, with indulgence meft fevere, the treats
| Us fpendthrifts of inestimable Time;
Unnoted, notes each moment mifapply'd;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brais
Writes our whole hiftory; which Death thail

Was Time cut off, and caft beneath the skies;
The skies, which watch him in his new abode, 210
Meafuring his motions by revolving fpheres ;
That horologe machinery divine.

Hours, days, and montlis, and years, his children,
play,

Like numerous wings around him, as he flies:
Or, rather, as unequal plumes, they shape
His ample pinions, fwift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his ancient reft,
And join anew Eternity his fire;

In his immutability to reft,

215

When worlds, that count his circles nožu, unhing'd
(Fate the loud fignal founding) headlong ruth 221
To timeless night and chaos, whence they rofe,
Why fpur the fpeedy? Why with levities
New wing thy fhort, fhort day's too rapid fight?
VOL. VIII.

290

But why on Time fo lavish is my fong?
On this great theme kind Nature keeps a fchool,285
To teach her fons herself. Each night we die,
Each morn are born anew: Each day, a life!
And fhall we kill each day? If Trifling kills:
Sure Vice must butcher. O what heaps of flain
Cry out for vengeance on us! Time deftroy'd
Is Suicide, where more than Blood is fpilt.
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?

295

Though we from Earth; Ethereal, they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man,

Who venerate themselves, the world defpife. 355
For what, gay friend! is this efcutcheon'd world,
Which hangs out Death in one eternal night;

Man fleeps; and Man alone; and Man, whofe A night, that glooms us in the noon-tide ray, fate,

Fate irreversible, intire, extreme,
Endlefs, hair hung, breeze-fhaken, o'er the gulph
A moment trembles; drops! and Man, for whom |
All elfe is in alarm! Man, the fole caufe 302
Of this furrounding ftorm! and yet he fleeps,
As the ftorm rock'd to reft.-Throw Years away?
Throw Empires, and be blamelefs. Moments
feize;
305
Heaven's on their wing: A moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid Day ftand
still,

Bid him drive back his car, and reimport
The period paft, 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 ardour fuch, for what oppreffes thee.
And is his ardour vain, Lorenzo? No;
That more than miracle the gods indulge;
To-day is Tefterday return'd; return'd
Full power'd to cancel, expiate, raife, adorn,
And reinftate us on the Rock of peace.
Let it not share its predeceffor's fate;

Nor, like its elder fifters, die a fool.

Shall it evaporate in fume? fly off

Fuliginous, and ftain us deeper ftill?
Shall we be poorer for the plenty pour'd?
More wretched for the clemencies of heaven?
Where fhall I find Him? Angels! tell
where.

And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the
fhroud?

Life's little stage is a small eminence, 360
Inch-high the grave above; that home of man,
Where dwells the multitude: We gaze around;
We read their monuments; we figh; and while
We figh, we fink; and are what we deplor'd;
Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot!

365

Is death at diftance? No: He has been on thee,
And given fure earneft of his final blow,
Thofe hours that lately fmil'd, where are they

now?

Pallid to thought, and ghaftly! drown'd, all drown'd

370

310 In that great deep, which nothing difembogues!
And, dying, they bequeath'd thee fmall renown.
The reft are on the wing: how fleet their flight}
Already has the fatal train took fire;

315

320

me

325

out:

You know him: He is near you: Point him
Shall I fee glories beaming from his brow?-
Or trace his footsteps by the rifing flowers?
Your golden wings, new hovering o'er him, fhed
Protection; now, are waving in applaufe
330
To that bleft fon of forefight! lord of fate!
That awful independent on To-morrow!
Whose work is done; who triumphs in the Paft;
Whofe efterdays look backwards with a fmile;
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly ;335
That common, but opprobious lot! paft hours,
If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight,
If folly bounds our profpect by the grave,
All feeling of futurity benumb'd;
All god-like paffion for eternals quencht;
All relifh of realties expir'd;
Renounc'd all correfpondence with the skies;
Our freedom chain'd; quite winglefs our defire;
In fense dark-rison'd all that ought to foar ;

340

Their answers form what men Experience call;
If Wifdum's friend, her beft; if not, worn foe.
O reconcile them! Kind Experience cries, 381
"There's nothing here, but what as nothing
weighs;

385

"The more our joy, the more we know it vain;
"And by fuccefs are tutor'd to defpair."
Nor is it only thus, but must be fo.
Who knows not this, though grey, is ftill a child.
Loose then from earth the grafp of fond desire,
Weigh anchor, and fome happier clime explore.

Art thou fo moor'd thou canst not disengage,
Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future fcenes? 390
Since by Life's paffing breath, blown up from earth,
Light as the fummer's duft, we take in air
A moment's giddy flight, and fall again;
Join the dull mafs, increase the trodden foil,
And sleep, till earth herself shall be no more ; 395
Since then (as emmets, their small world o'erthrown)
We, fore amaz'd, from out earth's ruins crawl.
And rife to fate extreme of foul or fair,
As man's own choice (controuler of the, fkies!)
As man's defpotic will, perhaps one hour,
(O how omnipotent is time!) decrees;
Should not each warning give a strong alarm?
Warning, far less than that of bofom torn

400

Its filent language fuch: nor need'st thou call
Thy Magi, to decypher what it meaus.
Know, like the Median, fate is in thy walls; 415
Doft ask, How? Whence? Belfhazzar-like, amaz'd?
Man's make inclofes the fure feeds of death;
Life feeds the murderer; Ingrate he thrives
On her own meal, and then his nurfe devours.
But here, Lorenzo, the delufion lies;
That folar fhadow, as it measures life,
It life refembles too; life fpeeds awa

420

Twins ty'd by nature, if they part, they die.
Hait thou no friend to fet thy mind abroach? 465
Good fenfe will stagnate. Thoughts shut up want

air,

And fpoil, like bales unopen'd to the fun.
Had thought been all, sweet speech had been de
ny'd;

Speech, thought's canal! fpeech, thought's crite

rion too!

Thought in the mine, may come forth gold or drofs;

470

When coin'd in words, we know its real worth.
If sterling, store it for thy future use;
Twill buy thee benefit; perhaps renown.
Thought, too, deliver'd, is the more poffeft;
Teaching, we learn; and, giving, we retain 475
The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire;
Speech burnishes our mental magazine;
Brightens, for ornament; and whets, for use.

From point to point, though feening to fland What numbers, fheath'd in erudition, lie,

still.

425

430

The cunning fugitive is fwift by ftealth :
Too fubtle is the movement to be feen;
Yet foon man's hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our danger; Gnomons, time:
As thefe are useless when the fun is fet:
So thofe, but when more glorious Reafon fhines.
Reafon fhould judge in all; in reafon's eye,
That fedentary fhadow travels hard.
But fuch our gravitation to the wrong,
So prone our hearts to whisper what we wish,
'Tis later with the wife than he's aware:
A Wilmington goes flower than the fun :
And all mankind mistake their time of day:
Ev'n age itself, Fresh hopes are hourly fown
In furrow'd brows. To gentle life's defcent
We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain.
We take fair days in winter for the spring;
And turn our bleffings into bane. Since oft
Man must compute that age he cannot feel,
He fearce believes he's older for his years.
Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in store
One disappointment fure, to crown the reft;
The disappointment of a promis'd hour.

482

Plung'd to the hilts in venerable tomes,
And rufted-in; who might have borne an edge,
And play'd a fprightly beam, if born to fpeech;
If born bleft heirs of half their mother's tongue!
'Tis thought's exchange, which, like th' alternate
push
485

Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned fcum,
And defecates the ftudent's standing pool.

In Contemplation is his proud refource?
'Tis poor, as proud, by Converse uníustain'd.
Rude thought runs wild in Contemplation's field;

490

435

Converfe, the menage, breaks it to the bit
Qf due restraint; and emulation's fpur

Gives graceful energy, by rivals aw'd.
'Tis converfe qualifies for folitude:
As exercife, for falutary rest.

495

By that untutor'd, Contemplation raves;
And Nature's fool, by Wisdom is undone.

440

On This, or fimilar, Philander! thou Whose mind was moral, as the preacher's] tongue;

500

Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines,
And fweeter than the fweet ambrofial hive,
What is fhe, but the means of Happiness?
445 That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool;
A melancholy fool, without her bells.
Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives
The precious end, which makes our wifdoni wife..
Nature, in zeal for human amity,
505
Denies, or damps, an undivided joy,
Joy is an import; joy is an exchange;
Joy flies monopolifts: it calls for Two;
Rich fruit! Heaven-planted! never pluckt by One
Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give
To focial man true relish of himself.
Full on ourfelves, defcending in a line,
455 Pleafure's bright beam is feeble in delight;
away,Delight intenfe is taken by rebound;

And ftrong, to wield all science worth the name;
How often we taik'd down the fummer's fun,
450

And cool'd our paffions by the breezy stream!
How often thaw'd and fhorten'd winter's eve,
By conflict kind, that ftruck out latent truth,
Beft found, fo fought; to the Reclufe more coy!
Thoughts difentangle pafling o'er the lip;
Clean runs the thread; if not, 'tis thrown
Or kept to tie up noufense for a song :
Song, fashionably fruitlefs; fuch as stains
The Fancy, and unhallow'd Poffion fires;
Chiming her faints to Cytherea's fane.