Had been an emperor without his crown.
Of Rome? say, rather, lord of human race:
He spoke as if deputed by mankind.
So should all speak: so reason speaks in all
From the soft whispers of that God in man,
Why fly to folly, why to frenzy fly,
For rescue from the blessings we possess ?
Time, the supreme !-Time is Eternity;
Pregnant with all eternity can give ;
Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile.
Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth
A power ethereal, only not adored.
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 lingering moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves.
Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer,
(For Nature's voice unstifled would recal)
Drives headlong towards the precipice of death;
Death most our dread; death thus more dreadful made: O what a riddle of absurdity!
Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels:
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Bless'd leisure is our curse; 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 amusement;
The next amusement mortgages our fields;
Slight inconvenience! prisons hardly frown,
From hateful time if prisons set us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel; years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd :
To man's false optics (from his folly false)
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep, decrepit with his age,
Behold him when pass'd by; what then is seen
But his broad pinions swifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in 'contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghast, cry out on his career.
Leave to thy foes these errors and these ills;
To Nature just, their cause and cure explore.
Not short Heaven's bounty, boundless our expense;
No niggard Nature, men are prodigals.
We waste, not use our time; we breathe, not live.
Time wasted is existence; used, is life:
And bare existence man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings and oppresses with enormous weight.
And why? since time was given for use, not waste, Enjoin'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.
Here then the riddle, mark'd above, unfolds;
Then Time turns torment, when man turns a fool.
We rave, we wrestle with great Nature's plan;
We thwart the Deity; and 'tis decreed,
Who thwart His will shall contradict their own.
Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves;
Our thoughts at enmity; our bosom-broil :
We push Time from us, and we wish him back:
Lavish of lustrums, and yet fond of life :
Life we think long and short, death seek and shun:
Body and soul, like peevish man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loath to part.
Oh the dark days of vanity! while here
How tasteless! and how terrible when gone!
Gone? they ne'er go; when pass'd, they haunt us still.
The spirit walks of every day deceased,
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 used. The man who consecrates his hours 185
By vigorous effort and an honest aim,
At once he draws the sting of life and death;
He walks with Nature, and her paths are peace.
Our error's cause and cure are seen: see next
Time's nature, origin, importance, speed,
And thy great gain from urging his career,-
All sensual man, because untouch'd, unseen,
He looks on Time as nothing. Nothing else
Is truly man's; 'tis Fortune's.-Time's a god!
Hast thou ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence?
For, or against, what wonders can he do!
And will: to stand blank neuter he disdains.
Not on those terms was Time (Heaven's stranger!) sent
On his important embassy to man.
Lorenzo! no on the long-destined hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of wondrous birth,
When the Dread Sire, on emanation bent,
And big with Nature, rising in his might,
Call'd forth Creation (for then Time was born)
By Godhead streaming through a thousand worlds;
Not on those terms, from the great days of Heaven,
From old Eternity's mysterious orb
Was Time cut off, and cast beneath the skies;
The skies, which watch him in his new abode,
Measuring his motions by revolving spheres,
That horologe machinery divine.
Hours, 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 sire;
In his immutability to nest,
When worlds, that count his circles now, unhinged
(Fate the loud signal sounding) headlong rush
To timeless night and chaos, whence they rose.
Why spur the speedy why with levities
New-wing thy short, short day's too rapid flight?
Know'st thou or what thou dost, or what is done? 225
Man flies from Time, and Time from man: too soon,
In sad divorce, this double flight must end;
And then where are we? where, Lorenzo! then,
Thy sports, thy pomps? I grant thee in a state
Not unambitious; in the ruffled shroud,
Thy Parian tomb's triumphant arch beneath.
Has, Death his fopperies? then well may Life
Put on her plume, and in her rainbow shine,
Ye well array'd! ye lilies of our land!
Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin,
(As sister-lilies might) if not so wise
As Solomon, more sumptuous to the sight!
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,
Favonious! breathe still softer, or be chid;
And other worlds send odours, sauce, and song,
And robes, and notions, framed in foreign looms!
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,
Wit's oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams!
How will you weather an eternal night,
Where such expedients fail ?—
O treacherous Conscience! while she seems to sleep
On rose and myrtle, lull'd with siren song;
While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong Appetite the slacken'd rein,
And give us up to license, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd:
: see, from behind her secret stand,
Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp,
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 misapplied;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brass
Writes our whole history, which Death shall read
In every 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 night we die;
Each morn are born anew each day a life
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