To teach her Sons Herfelf. Each Night we die,
Each Morn are born anew: Each Day, a Life!
And shall we kill each Day? If Trifling kills;
Sure Vice muft butcher. O what Heaps of Slain
Cry out for Vengeance on us! Time destroy'd
Is Suicide, where more than Blood is fpilt.
Time flies, Death urges, Knells call, Heav'n invites,
Hell threatens, All exerts; in Effort, All;
More than Creation labours!
And is there in Creation, what, amidst
This Tumult Univerfal, wing'd Dispatch,
And ardent Energy, fupinely yawns?
Man fleeps; and Man alone; and Man, whofe Fate,
Fate irreversible, intire, extreme,
Endless, hair-hung, breeze-fhaken, o'er the Gulph
A Moment trembles; drops! and Man, for whom
All elfe is in Alarm; Man, the fole Cause.
Of this furrounding Storm! and yet he fleeps,
As the Storm rock'd to Reft-Throw Years away?
Throw Empires,. and be blameless. Moments feize,
Heav'n's on their Wing: a Moment we may wish,
When Worlds want Wealth to buy. Bid Day ftand ftill,
Bid him drive back his Carr, recall, retake
Fate's hafty Prey: Implore him, reimport
The Period past, regive the given Hour.
LORENZO, more than Miracles we want;
LORENZO --O for Yefterdays to come!
Such is the Language of the Man awake;
His Ardor fuch, for what oppreffes Thee.
And is his Ardor vain, LORENZO? No;
That more than Miracle the Gods indulge;
To-day is Tefterday return'd; return'd
Full-power'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn,
And reinftate us on the Rock of Peace.
Let it not fhare its Predeceffor's Fate;
Nor, like its elder Sifters, 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 Heav'n?
Where fhall I find Him? Angels! tell me where.
You know Him; He is near you: Point him out:
Shall I fee Glories beaming from his Brow?
Or trace his Footsteps by the rifing Flow'rs?
Your golden Wings, now hov'ring o'er him, fhed
Protection; now, are waving in Applaufe
To that bleft Son of Forefight! Lord of Fate!
That aweful Independent on To-morrow !
Whofe Work is done; who triumphs in the Past;
Whose resterdays look backwards with a Smile;
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly;
That common, but opprobrious Lot! past 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 Relish of Realities expir'd;
Renounc'd all Correfpondence with the Skies;
Our Freedom chain'd; quite winglefs our Defire,
In Senfe dark-prifon'd All that ought to foar,
Prone to the Centre, crawling in the Duft,
Difmounted ev'ry Great and glorious Aim ;
Embruted ev'ry Faculty 'divine;
Heart-bury'd in the Rubbish of the World.
The World, that Gulph of Souls, immortal Souls,
Souls elevate, Angelic, wing'd with Fire
To reach the distant Skies, and triumph there
On Thrones which fhall not mourn their Mafters chang'd;
Tho' 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 efcutcheon'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: Wę 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!
Is Death at Diftance? No: He has been on thee; And giv'n fure Earneft of his final Blow.
Thofe Hours, which lately fmil'd, where are they now?
Pallid to Thought, and ghaftly! drown'd, all drown'd
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;
A Moment, and the World's blown up to thee;
The Sun is Darknefs, and the Stars are Duft.
'Tis greatly wife to talk with our paft Hours; And ask them, what Report they bore to Heaven; And how they might have born more welcome News. Their Answers form what Men Experience call; If Wisdom's Friend, her beft; if not, worst Foe. O reconcile them! Kind Experience cries,
"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.
Nor is it only thus, but must be so.
Who knows not this, tho' Grey, is still a Child.
Loose then from Earth the Grafp of fond Defire,
Weigh Anchor, and fome happier Clime explore.
Art thou fo moor'd thou can'ft not difengage, Nor give thy Thoughts a Ply to future Scenes? Since, by Life's paffing Breath, blown up from Earth, Light, as the Summer's Duft, we take in Air A Moment's giddy Flight, and fall again ; Join the dull Mass, increase the trodden S04, And fleep till Earth herself shall be no
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 Skies!)
As Man's defpotic Will, perhaps one Hour,
(O how Omnipotent is Time!) decrees;
Should not each Warning give a ftrong Alarm?
Warning, far less than that of Bofom torn
From Bosom, bleeding o'er the facred Dead!
Should not each Dial strike us as we pass,
Portentous, as the written Wall, which struck,
O'er midnight Bowls, the proud Affyrian pale,
Ere-while high-flufht with Infolence and Wine?
Like That, the Dial fpeaks; and points to thee,
LORENZO! loth to break the Banquet up.
"O Man, thy Kingdom is departing from thee;
"And, while it lafts, is emptier than my Shade."
Its filent Language fuch; nor need'ft thou call
Thy Magi, to decypher what it means.
Know, like the Median, Fate is in thy Walls:
Doft afk, How? Whence? Belshazzar-like, amaz'd?
Man's Make inclofes the fure Seeds 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 Solar Shadow, as it measures Life,
It Life resembles too: Life fpeeds away
From Point to Point, tho' feeming to stand ftill.
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