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Death, Friendship, and Philander's final scene.
So could I touch these themes, as might obtain
Thine ear, nor leave thy heart quite difengag'd,
The good deed would delight me; half impress
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,
(O glorious avarice!) thought of death inspires,
As rumour'd robberies endear our gold?
O Time! than gold more facred; more a load
Than lead, to fools; and fools reputed wife.
What moment granted man without account?
What years are fquander'd, wifdom's debt unpaid!
Our wealth in days, all due to that discharge.
Hafte, hafte, he lies in wait, he 's at the door,
Infidious Death! should his ftrong hand arrest,
No compofition fets the prifoner free.

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;

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Fain would I pay thee with Eternity.

But ill my genius anfwers my defire;

My fickly fong is mortal, paft thy cure.
Accept the will;-that dies not with
For what calls thy disease, Lorenzo? not

For Efculapian, but for moral aid.

my

ftrain.

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Thou

Thou think'ft it folly to be wife too soon.
Youth is not rich in Time, it may be poor;
Part with it as with money, fparing; pay

No moment, but in purchase of its worth;

With holy hope of nobler time to come;

And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
Part with it as with life, reluctant; big

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Time higher aim'd, ftill nearer the great mark
Of men and angels; virtue more divine.

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Is this our duty, wisdom, glory, gain?
(Thefe heaven benign in vital union binds)
And sport we like the natives of the bough,
When vernal funs infpire? Amusement reigns
Man's great demand: To trifle, is to live:
And is it then a trifle, too, to die?

Thou fay't I preach, Lorenzo, 'tis confeft.
What if, for once, I preach thee quite awake?
Who wants amufement in the flame of battle?
Is it not treason, to the foul immortal,
Her foes in arms, eternity the prize?

Will toys amufe, when medicines cannot cure?
When fpirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their luftre lofe, and leffen in our fight,
As lands, and cities with their glittering fpires,
To the poor shatter'd bark, by sudden storm
Thrown off to fea, and soon to perish there?
Will toys amufe? No: Thrones will then be toys,
And earth and skies feem duft upon the scale.
Redeem we time?-Its lofs we dearly buy.
What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd sports?

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He pleads Time's numerous blanks; he loudly pleads
The ftraw-like trifles on life's common stream.
From whom those blanks and trifles, but from thee?
No blank, no trifle, nature made, or meant.
Virtue, or propos'd virtue, ftill be thine;
This cancels thy complaint at once. This leaves
In act no trifle, and no blank in time.
This greatens, fills, immortalizes all;
This, the bleft art of turning all to gold;
This the good heart's prerogative to raise
A royal tribute from the poorest hours;
Immenfe revenue! every moment pays,
If nothing more than purpose in thy power;
Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed:
Who does the beft his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
Our outward act indeed admits restraint;
"Tis not in things o'er thought to domineer;
Guard well thy thought; our thoughts are heard in
heaven.

On all important Time, through every age,

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Though much, and warm, the wife have urg'd; the man
Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.
"I've loft 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: So reafon fpeaks in all:
From the foft whispers of that God in man,
Why fly to folly, why to phrenzy fly,

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For rescue from the bleffing 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 unjust to nature and himself,
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconfiftent man!
Like children babbling nonfenfe in their sports
We cenfure nature for a span too short;
That span too fhort, we tax as tedious too;
Torture invention, all expedients tire,
To lash the lingering moments into speed,

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And whirl us (happy riddance !) from ourselves.
Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer

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(For Nature's voice unftifled would recall)

Drives headlong towards the precipice of death;

Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful made: O what a riddle of absurdity!

Leifure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels ;

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How heavily we drag the load of life!

Bleft leisure 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 amusement mortgages our fields;
Slight inconvenience! prifons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if prisons fet us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,

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

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Leave to thy foes thefe errors, and thefe ills; 145
To nature juft, their Cause and Cure explore.
Not short heaven's bounty, boundless our expence ;
No niggard, nature; men are prodigals.

We waste, not use our time; we breathe, not live.
Time wafted is existence, us'd is life,

And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd,

Wrings, and oppreffes with enormous weight.
And why? fince Time was given for use, not waste,
Injoin'd to fly; with tempeft, tide, and stars,

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To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man;

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Time's ufe 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, blundering, fplit on idleness for eafe.

Life's cares are comforts; fuch by heaven defign'd; 160
He that has none, must make 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.

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