How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone ;
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise:
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves; and re-resolves: then dies the same.
And why? because he thinks himself immortal:
All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like wounded air,
Soon close; where past the shaft, no trace is found:
As from the wing no scar the sky retains ;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death:
E'en with the tender tear which nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. p. 28.
Shall I, too, weep? where then is fortitude?
And fortitude abandon'd, where is man?
I know the terms on which he sees the light:
He that is born, is listed: life is war ;
Eternal war with woe: who bears it best,
Dost thou mourn Philander's fate?
I know thou say'st it says thy life the same?
He mourns the dead, who lives as they desire.
Where is that thrift, that avarice of time,
(0 glorious avarice !) thought of death inspires,
As rumour'd robberies endear our gold?
O Time! than gold more sacred; more a load
Than lead, to fools and fools reputed wise.
What moment granted man without account?
What years are squand'red! wisdom's debt unpaid!
Our wealth in days all due to that discharge.
Haste, haste, he lies in wait, he's at the door.
For what calls thy disease, Lorenzo? not
For Esculapean, but for moral aid.
Thou think'st it folly to be wise too soon.
Youth is not rich in time; it may be poor:
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment, but in purchase of its worth:
And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
Part with it as with life, reluctant; big
With holy hope of nobler time to come:
Time higher-aim'd, still nearer the great mark
Of men and angels; virtue more divine.
Will toys amuse, when med'cines cannot cure?
When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight,
As lands, and cities with their glitt❜ring spires,
To the poor shatter'd bark, by sudden storm
Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there,
Will toys amuse ?—No: thrones will then be toys,
And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale.
If nothing more than purpose in thy power,
Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed:
Who does the best 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 thoughts; our thoughts are heard in
heaven.
Ah! how unjust to nature, and himself,
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
Like children babbling nonsense in their sports,
We censure nature for a span too short;
That span too short, we tax as tedious too,
Torture invention, all expedients tire,
To lash the ling'ring moments into speed.
And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves.
Injoin'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 labour for his cure :
Not, blundering, split on idleness, for ease.
Life's cares are comforts; such by heaven design'd;
He that has none, must make them or be wretched.
Cares are employments; and without employ
The soul is on a rack; the rack of rest:
To souls most adverse; action all their joy.
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.
O 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 possess'd, both pain us, what can please?
That which the Deity to please ordain'd,
Time us'd. The man who consecrates his hours
By vig'rous effort, and an honest aim,
At once he draws the sting of life and death;
He walks with nature, and her paths are peace. p. 37.
Ye well arrayed! ye lilies of our land!
Ye lilies male! who neither toil, nor spin,
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
Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid,
And other worlds send odours, sauce, and song,
And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign looms!
Lorenzos of our age, who deem
O ye
One moment unamused, 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 through the tedious length
Of a short winter's day-say, sages, say!
Wits, oracles; say, dreamers of gay dreams;
How will you weather an eternal night,
Where such expedients fail?
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.
A moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy.
"There's nothing here, but what as nothing weighs;
"The more our joy, the more we know it vain ;
"And by success, are tutor❜d to despair."
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