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, 285
To teach her sons herself.
Each morn are born anew:
Each night we die,
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?
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, intire, 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; 305
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 reimport
The period past, 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 such for what oppresses 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 eldest 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. 325
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; 335
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 benumb'd;
All god-like 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 gulp 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 chang'd;
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 escutcheon'd world, Which hangs out Death in one eternal night? A night, that glooms us in the noon-tide ray, And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud. Life's little stage is a small eminence, Inch-high the grave above; that home of Man, Where dwells the multitude: We gaze around; We read their monuments; we sigh; and while
Whose yesterdays look backward with a Smile;
Vor,like the Parthian wound him as they fly
London: Published Aug 26th 797, by T. Heptinstall, No30.4. High Holborn ·
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