For flighted Counsel; fuch thy future Peace!
And think'ft thou ftill thou canst be wife too foon?
But why on Time fo lavish is my Song?
On this great Theme kind Nature keeps a School,
To teach her Sons Herfelf. Each Night we Dye,
Each Morn are born anew; Each Day, a Life;
And fhall we kill each Day? If Trifling kills;
Sure Vice muft butcher. O what heaps of flain
Cry out for Vengeance on us? Time destroy'd
Is Suicide, where more than Blood is spilt.
Time flies, Death urges, Knells call, Heav'n invites,
Hell threatens; All exerts; in Effort, All;
More than Creation labours :-Labours more?
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 irreverfible, entire, 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 Caufe
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 stand still,
Bid him drive back his Carr, recall, retake
Fate's hafty prey; Implore him, reimport
The Period paft; regive the given Hour.
Lorenzo, more than Miracles we want:
Lorenzo O for Yesterdays to come!
Such is the Language of the Man awake;
His Ardor fuch, for what oppresses Thee:
And is his Ardor vain? Lorenzo! No:
That more than Miracle the Gods indulge:
Today is Yesterday return'd; return’d
Full-pow'r'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn,
And reinstate us on the Rock of Peace.
Let it not share its Predeceffor's Fate ;
Nor, like its elder Sifters, die a Fool.
Shall it evaporate in Fume? Fly off
Fuliginous, and ftain us deeper still ?
Shall we be poorer for the Plenty pour'd ?
More wretched for the Clemencies of Heaven !
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, shed
Protection; now, are waving in Applaufe
To that bleft Son of Forefight! Lord of Fate!
That awful Independent on to-morrow!
Whofe Work is done; who triumphs in the Paft;
Whofe Yesterdays look backwards with a Smile;
Nor like the Parthian wound him as they fly;
That common, but opprobrious Lot! Paft 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 quench'd
All relish of Realities expir'd;
Renounc'd all Correfpondence with the Skies;
Our Freedom chain'd; quite wingless our Defire;
In Sense dark-prifon'd All that ought to foar,
Prone to the Center, crawling in the Duft;
Difmounted ev'ry Great and Glorious Aim;
Embruted ev'ry Faculty divine;
Heart-buried in the rubbish of the World:
The World, that Gulph of Souls, immortal Souls,
Souls elevate, Angelick, wing'd with Fire
To reach the diftant Skies and triumph there
On Thrones, which fhall not mourn their Masters
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 escutcheon'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; we 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 Distance? No: he has been on thee;
And giv'n fure Earneft of his final Blow.
Thofe Hours, which lately smil'd, where are they now?
Pallid to Thought, and ghastly! 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 Darkness, and the Stars are Dust.
Time paffes like a Post: we nothing send
But poor Bellerophon's exprefs; our Doom.
'Tis greatly wife to talk with our past 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;
lf Wisdom's Friend, her beft; if not, worst Foe.
O reconcile them; kind Experience crys,
"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 fo:
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 canst 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 Soil,
And fleep till Earth herself shall be no more ;
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 defpotick Will, perhaps one Hour,
(O how Omnipotent is Time!) decrees;
Should not each Warning give a ftrong Alarm?
Warning, far lefs than that of bofom torn
From bofom, bleeding o'er the facred dead?
Should not each Dial strike us as we pass,
Portentous, as the written wall, which ftruck,
O'er midnight Bowls, the proud Affyrian pale,
E'er while high-flusht with Infolence, and Wine?
Like That, the Dial speaks; and points to thee
Lorenzo! loath 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'st 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 feeds 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 fhadow, as it measures Life,
It Life refembles too: Life fpeeds away
From point to point, tho' feeming to stand still:
The cunning Fugitive is swift by stealth;
Too fubtle is the Movement to be seen,
Yet foon Man's Hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our Danger, Gnomons, Time;
As these are useless when the Sun is fet;
So thofe, but when more glorious Reafon fhines.
Reafon fhould judge in all: In Reason's eye,
That Sedentary fhadow travels hard :
But fuch our Gravitation to the Wrong,
So prone our hearts to whisper what we wish,
'Tis later with the Wife, than he's aware;
A Wilmington goes flower than the Sun;
And all mankind mistake their Time of Day;
Ev'n Age itfelf: Fresh Hopes are hourly fown
In furrow'd Brows. So gentle Life's Defcent,
We shut our eyes and think it is a Plain :
We take fair days in Winter, for the Spring:
We turn our Bleffings into Bane: fince oft
Man must compute that Age He cannot feel;
He fcarce believes He's older for his Years.
Thus, at Life's latest Eve, we keep in Store
One Disappointment fure, to crown the Reft;
The Disappointment of a promis'd Hour.
On this, or Similar, Philander! Thou
Whose mind was moral, as the Preacher's tongue;
And strong to wield all Science, worth the name;
How often we talk'd down the Summer's Sun,
And cool'd our Paffions by the breezy stream?
How often thaw'd, and fhortned Winter's Eve,
By Conflict kind, that ftruck our latent Truth;
Beft found, fo fought; to the Reclufe more Coy?
Thoughts difentangle paffing o'er the Lip;
|