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Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.
“İ've lost a day,!—the prince who nobly cry'd,
Had been an emperor without his crown;
Of Rome? fay, rather, lord of human race;
He fpoke, as if deputed by mankind.
So fhould all speak, fo Reafon fpeaks in all,
From the foft whispers of that god in man,
Why fly to folly, why to frenzy fly,
For rescue from the bleffings we poffefs?
Time, the fupreme !-Time is eternity;
Pregnant with all eternity can give ;
Pregnant with all that makes archangels fmile,
Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth
A power ethereal, only not ador’d.

Ah! how unjuft to nature and himself Is thoughtless, thanklefs, inconfiftent man: Like children babling nonsense in their sports, We cenfure nature for a fpan too short; That fpan too fhort, we tax as tedious too, Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lafh the ling'ring moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance !) from ourselves. Art, brainlefs Art! our furious charioteer (For Nature's voice unftifled would recal) Drives headlong towards the precipice of death; Death, moft our dread; death thus more dreadful O what a riddle of abfurdity!

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Leifure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels;
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blefs'd leifure is our curfe; 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 amufement ;
The next amufement mortgages our fields;
Slight inconvenience! prifons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if prifons fet us free,
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel; years to moments fhrink,

Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd.
To man's falfe optics (from his folly falfe)
Time, in advance, behiad him hides his wings,
And feems to creep, decrepit with his age;
Behold him, when pafs'd by; what then is seen.
But his broad pinions swifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in contradiction ftrong,
Rueful, aghaft! cry out at his career.

;

Leave to thy foes these errors, and these ills To nature juft, their caufe and cure explore, Not fhort Heaven's bounty, boundlefs our expence ; No niggard, nature; men are prodigals. As bold Alphonfus threaten'd in his pride, We throw away our funs, as made for fport, And not to light us on our way to fcenes Whofe luftre turns their luftre into fhade..

We wafte, not use our time: We breathe, not live.
Time wafted is exiftence; us'd is life:

And bare exiflence, man, to live ordain'd,.
Wrings, and oppreffes with enormous weight.
And why? fince Time was given for ufe, not waste,
Injoin'd to fly; with tempeft, tide, and stars,
To keep his fpeed, nor ever wait for man;
Time's ufe was doom'd a pleasure, wafte, a pain;
That man might feel his error, if unseen;
And feeling, fly to 'abour for his cure:
Not, blundering, fplit on idlenefs, for cafe.

Life's cares are comforts, fuch by heaven design'd;
He that has none, must take them, or be wretched.
Cares are employments and without employ

:

The foul is on a rack; the rack of rest ;

To fouls most adverfe; action all their joy.

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 contradi&t their own. Hence our unnatural quarrel with ourfelves ; Our thoughts at enmity: our bofom-broil;

We push time from us, and we wish him back,
Lavish of luftrums, and yet fond of life;

Life we think long, and fhort; death feek, and fhun;
Body and foul, like peevish man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loath to part.

Oh the dark days of vanity! while here,›
How taftlefs! and how terrible, when gone!

Gone! they ne'er go; when past, they haunt us ftill; The fpirit walks of ev'ry day deceas'd,

And fmiles an angel, or a fury frowns.

Nor death nor life delights us.

If time pafl,

And time poffeft, both pain us, what can please ?
That which the Deity to please ordain d,
Time us'd. The man who confecrates his hours
By vig'rous effort, and an honeft aim.

At once he draws the fting of life and death:
He walks with nature; and her paths are peace.
Qur error's cause and cure are feen: See next
Time's nature, origin, importance Speed;
And thy great gain from urging his career.-
All-fenfual man, becaufe untouch d, unseen,
He looks on time as nothing. Nothing else
Is truly man s; tis fortune's. Time's a god.
Thou haft ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence;
For, or againft, what wonders can he do?
And will: To ftand blank neuter he difdains.
Not on thofe terms was Time (heaven's stranger) feu
On his important embaffy to man. 1
LORENZO! no: On the long deftin'd hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
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,)
By Godhead ftreaming through a thousand worlds;
Not on thofe terms, from the great days of heav'n,
From old Eternity's myfterious orb,

Was time cut off, and caft beneath the fkkies;
The kies, which watch him in his new abode,

Meafuring his motions by revolving spheres;

That horologe machinery divine.

Ilours, days, and months, and years, his children play,
Like numerous 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 fire;

In his immutability to neft,

When worlds, that count his circles now, unhing'd,
(Fate the loud fignal founding), headlong ruth
To timeless night and chaos, whence they rofe.
Why fpur the speedy? why with levities

New-wing thy fhort, fhort day's too rapid flight ?
Know't thou, or what thou doft, or what is done?
Man flies from Time, and Time from man: too soon
In fad divorce this double flight must end;
And then, where are we? where, LORENZO! then,
Thy fports? thy pomps?-I grant thee, in a ftate
Not unambitions; in the ruffled throud.
Thy Parian tomb's triumphant arch beneath.
Has Death his fopperies? then well may Life
Put on her plume, and in her rainbow fhine.
Ye well-array'd! ye lilies of our land?
Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor fpin,
(As fifter lilies mighi), if not fo wife
As Solomon more fumptuous to the fight!
Ye delicate? who nothing can fupport,
Yourfelves moft infupportable! for whom
The winter rofe must blow, the fun put on
A brighter beam in Leo! filky-foft
Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid;

And other worlds fend odours, fauce, and fong,
And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign looms!

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ye LCRENZOS of our age! who deem

One moment unamus'd, a mifery

Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For every bawble, drivell'd o'er by sense;
For rattles, and conceits of every cast.

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For change of follies, and relaps of joy,

To drag you, patient, through the tedious length
Of a fhort 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? where wit's a fool,
Mirth mourns, dreams vanish, laughter drops a tear?
O treach❜rous Confcience! while fhe feems to fleep
On rofe and myrtle, lull'd with fyren fong;
While fhe feems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong Appetite the flacken'd rein,
And give us up to Licence, unrecall'd,
Unmark d ;-fee, from behind her fecret fland,
The fly 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,
Lift'ning o'erhears the whispers of our camp;
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And steals our embryos of iniquity.

As all-rapacious ufurers conceal

Their doomsday-book from all confuming heirs ;
Thus, with indulgence moft fevere, the treats
Us, fpendthrifts of ineftimable Time;

Unnoted, notes each moment mifapply'd;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brass,
Writes our whole hiftory; which Death fhall read
In every pale delinquent's private ear;

And Judgment publish; publifh to more worlds
Than this; and endless
age in

groans refound.

LORENZO, fuch that fleeper in thy breaft!
Such is her flumber; and her vengeance fuch,

For flighted counfel: Such thy future peace!

And think' thou ftill thou canst be wife too faon ? But why on Time fo lavifh is my fong?

On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school, To teach her fons herself. Each night we die, Each morn are born anew: Each day, a life!

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