Teling thee more, and double thy distress.
Lorenzo, fortune makes her court to thee,
Thy fond heart dances, while the Syren fings.
Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind;
I would not damp, but to fecure-thy joys.
Think not that fear is facred to the ftorm:
Stand on thy guard against the smiles of fate.
Is heaven tremendous in its frowns? Moft fure;
And in its favours formidable too :

Its favours here are trials, not rewards;
A call to duty, not discharge from care;
And should alarm us, full as much as woes;
Awake us to their caufe and confequence;
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our defert;
Awe nature's tumult, and chaftife her joys,
Left, while we clafp, we kill them; nay, invert
To worse than fimile mifery, their charms.
Revated joys, like foes in civil war,

Like bofom friendships to refentment four'd,
With rage envenom'd rise against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire.
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.

Mine dy'd with thee, Philander! thy last figh
Diffolv'd the charm; the difenchanted earth
Loft all her luftre. Where her glittering towers?
Her golden mountains, where? all darken'd down
To naked walle; a dreary vale of tears;
The great magician's dead! thou poor, pale piece
Of out-caft earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! Thy darling hope fo near,
(Long-labour'd prize!) O how ambition flush'd
Thy glowing cheek! Ambition truly great,
Of virtuous praife. Death's fubtle feed within
(Si, treacherous miner !) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted fcheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rofe fo red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!
Man's forefight is conditionally wife;
Lorenzo wifdom into fully turns
Oft, the first inftant, its idea fair

To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye!
The prefent moment terminates our fight;
Clouds, thick as thofe on doomsday, drown the next;
We penetrate, we prophefy in vain.
Time is dealt out by particles; and each
Ere mingled with the fireaming fands of life,
By fate's inviolable oath is fworn
Deep filence, "Where eternity begins."

By nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's no prerogative in human hours.
In human hearts what bolder thought can rife,
Than man's prefumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
Fer numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is fure to none; and yet on this perhaps,
This peradventure, infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant, we build

Our mountain hopes; fpin out eternal schemes,
As we the fatal fifters could out-spin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.

Not ev'n Philander had bespoke his fhroud:
Nor had he caufe; a warning was deny'd:
How many fall as fudden, not as fafe!

As fudden, though for years admonish'd home.
Of human ills the laft extreme beware,
Beware, Lorenzo! a flow fudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate furprife!
Be wife to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wifdom is pufh'd out of life.
Procraftination is the thief of time;

Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

If not fo frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis fo frequent, this is ftranger ftill.

Of man's miraculous miftakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themfelves the compliment to think
They one day fhall not drivel: and their pride
On this reverfion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future felves applaud;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fates, to wisdom they config;
The thing they can't but purpose, they poftpone ;
'Tis not in folly, not to fcorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom, to do more.
All promife is poor dilatory man,
[deed,
And that through every stage: when young, in-
In full content we, fometimes, nobly reit,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only with,
As duteous fons, our fathers were more wife.
At thirty man fufpects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpofe to refolve:
In all the magnanimity of thought
Refolves; and re-refolves; then dies the fame.

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal, but themselves; Themselves, when fome alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the fudden dread;

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon clofe; where, past the shaft, no trace is found.
As from the wing, no fear the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the kel;
So dies in human hearts the thoughts of death,
Ev'n with the tender tear which nature fheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
Can I forget Philander? That were strange!
O my full heart!-But fhould I give it vent,
The longest night, though longer far, would fail,
And the lark listen to my midnight long.

The fprightly lark's fhrill matin wakes the morn;
Grief's fharpeft thorn hard prefling on my breaft,
I ftrive, with wakeful melody, to cheer
The fullen gloom, fweet Philomel! like thee,
And call the ftars to liften: every star

Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay.
Yet be not vain; there are, who thine excel,
And charm through diftant ages: wrapt in shade,
Prifoner of darknefs! to the filent bours,
How often I repeat their rage divine,

To lull my griefs, and fteal my heart from woc !.
I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire.

Dark, though not blind, like thee, Mæonides!
Or, Milton thee; ah, could I reach your ftrain!
Or bis, who made Manoides our own.
Man too he fung: immortal man I fing;
Oft burfts my fong beyond the bounds of life;
What, now,
but immortality can please?
O had le prefs'd his theme, purfued the track,
Which opens out of darkness into day!
O had he, mounted on his wing of fire,
Soar'd where I fink, and fung immortal man!
How had it bleft mankind, and refcued me!

NIGHT II.

ON TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP. TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF WILMINGTON.

WHEN the cock crew, he wept"-mote by that

eye

Which looks on me, on all: That power, who bids
This midnight centinel, with clarion fhrill,
Emblem of that which fhall awake the dead,
Roufe fouls from flumber, into thoughts of beaven.
Shall I too weep? Where then is fortitude?
And fortitude abandon'd, where is man?
I know the terms on which he fees the light;
He that is born, is lifted; life is war;
Eternal war with woe. Who bears it best,
Deferves it least.-On other themes I'll dwell.
Lorenzo! let me turn.my thoughts on thee,
And thine, on themes may profit; profit there,
Where most they need. Themes too, the genuine
growth

Of dear Philander's duft. He thus, though dead, May ftill befriend-what themes? time's wondrous price,

Death, friendship, and Philander's final scene.

Se could I touch these themes, as might obtain
Thine ear, nor leave thy heart quite difengag'd,
The good deed would delight me; half imprefs
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,
(0 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, wisdom's debt unpaid!
Our wealth in days, all due to that discharge.
Hafle, hafte, he lies in wait, he's at the door,
Infidious death! fhould his ftrong hand arrest,
No compofition fets the prifoner free.
Eternity's inexorable chain

Faft binds; and vengeance claims the full arrear.
How late I fhudder'd on the brink! how late
Life call'd for her last refuge in despair!
That time is mine, O Mead! to thee I owe;
Fain would I pay thee with eternity.
But ill my genius anfwers my defire;
My fickly fong is mortal, past thy cure.
Accept the will;-that dies not with my ftrain.

For what calls tby disease, Lorenzo? not
For Efculapian, but for moral aid.

Thou think'ft it folly to be wife too food.
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;
And what its worth, afk 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, ftill nearer the great mark
Of men and angels; virtue more divine.

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 inspire? 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 treafon, in 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 fhatter'd bark, by fudden ftorm
Thrown off to fea, and foon to perish there?
Will toys amufe? No: Thrones will then be toys,
And earth and fkies feem duft upon the scale.

Redeem we time?-Its lofs we dearly buy. What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd sports? He pleads time's numerous blanks; he loudly pleads The ftraw-like trifies on Ifie's common stream. From whom thole blanks and trifles, but from ther No blank, no trifle, nature made, or meant. Virtue, or propos'd virtue, still be thine; This cancels thy complaint at once. This leaves In act no trifle, and to 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 purfofe in thy power; Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed: Who does the beft his circumftance 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.

Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.
"I've left 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 fpeak: So reafon fpeaks in all :
From the foft whispers of that God in man,
Why fly to folly, why to phrenzy fly,
For refcue 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, thanklefs, 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; Terture 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 unified would recal), Drives headlong towards the precipice of death; Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful made:

O what a riddle of abfurdity!

Leifare is pain; takes off our chariot wheels;
How heavily we drag the load of life!

Beft leifure is our curfe; like that of Cain,
It makes us wander; wander earth around,
To fy 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 prifons fet us free.
Yet when death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel; years to moments fhrink,
Ages to years. The telefcope 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 feen,
But his broad pinions fwifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in contradiction ftrong,
Rucfui, aghaft! cry out on his career.

Leave to thy foes thefe errors, and these ills;
To sure juft, their caufe and cure explore.
Not thort heaven's bounty, boundlefs our expence;
No ciggard nature; men are prodigals.
We wafe, not use our time; we breathe, not live.
Time wafed is exiftence, us'd is life,
And bare exiflence, man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings and oppreffes with enormous weight.
And why? fince time was given for ufe, not walle,
Erjoin'd to fly; with tempeft, tide, and stars,
To keep his fpeed, nor ever wait for man;
Time's ufe was doom'd a pleasure: wafle, a pain;
That man might feel his error, if unfeen:
And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure;
Not, blundering, fplit on idlenefs for eafe.
Lite's cares are comforts; fuch by heaven defign'd;
He that has none, muft make them, or be wretched.
Cares are employments, and without employ
The foul is on a rack; the rack of reft,
To fouls moft adverfe; action all their joy.

Here then the riddle niark'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, fhall contradict their own. Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves; Our thoughts at enmity; our bofom-broil; We puth time from us, and we with him back: Lash of luftrums, and yet fond of life; Lift we think long, and fhort; death feck, and fhun: VOL. X.

Body and foul, like peevish man and wife, United jar, and yet are loth to part.

Oh the dark days of vanity! while here,
How taftelefs and how terrible, when gone!
Gone! they ne'er go; when paft, they haunt us
ftill;

The fpirit walks of every day deceas'd;
And fmiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
Nor death, nor life delight us. If time paft,
And time off, both pain us, what can please?
That which the Deity to pleafe ordain'd,
Time us'd. The man who confecrates his hours
By vigorous effort, and an honest aim,
At once he draws the fting of life and death;
He walks with nature; and her paths are peace.

Our error's caufe and cure are feen: See next
Time's nature, origin, importance, Speed;
And thy great gain from urging his career.-
All-fenfual man, becaufe untouch'd, unfeen,
He looks on time as nothing. Nothing else
Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's-time's a god.
Haft thou ne'er heard of time's omnipotence;
For, or again?, what wonders he can do!
And will: To ftand blank neuter he difdains.
Not on those terms was time (heaven's stranger!)

fent

On his important embaffy to man.
Lorenzo! no: On the long-defin'd hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of wondrous birth,
When the Dread Sire, on emanation bent,
And big with nature, rifing in his might,
Call'd forth creation (for then time was born),
By godhead freaming through a thoufand worlds;
Not on those terms, from the great days of heaven,
From old eternity's myfterious orb

Was time cut off, and ca't beneath the fkies;
The skies, which watch him in his new abode,
Measuring his motions by revolving spheres;
That horologe machinery divine.
[play,
Hours, days, and months, and years, his children,
Like numerous wings around him, as he flies:
Or rather as unequal plunies, they shape
His ample pinions, fwift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his ancient reft,
And join anew eternity his fire;
In his immutability to neft,

When worlds, that count his circles now, unhing'd
(Fate the loud fignal founding), headlong rufh
To timeless night and chaos, whence they rofe.

Why fpur the speedy? why with levitics New wing thy fhort, fhort day's too rapid flight? Know' thou, or what thou doft, or what is done? Man flies from time, and time from man; too soon In fad divorce this double flight muft end; And then, where are we? where, Lorenzo, then Thy Sports? thy pomps?-I grant thee, in a ftate Not unambitious; in the ruffled throud, Thy Parian tomb's triumphant arch beneath. Has death his fopperies? Then well may life Put on her plume, and in her rainbow fhine. Ye well-array'd! ye lilies of our land! Ye lilies male who neither toil nor fpin (As filter lilies might), if not fo wife As Solomon, more fumptuous to the fight!

Ye delicate! who nothing can fupport,
Yourselves most infupportable! for whom
The winter role muft blow, the fun put on
A brighter beam in Leo; filky foft
Favonius breathe still fofter, or be chid;
And other worlds fend odours, fauce, and fong,
And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign looms!
O ye Lorenzos of our age! who deem

One moment unamus'd a mifery

Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For every baw ble drivell'd o'er by sense;
For rattles, and conceits of every cast,
For change of follies, and relays of joy,

To drag your patient through the tedious length
Of a fhort winter's day-fay, fages, fay,
Wit's oracles fay, dreamers of gay dreams!
How will you weather an eternal night,
Where fuch expedients fail?

O treacherous confcience! while fhe feems to fleep
On roft and myrtle, iull'd with fyren fong;
While the feems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong appetite the flacken'd rein,
And give us up to licence, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd;-fee, from behind her secret stand,
The fly informer minutes every fault,
And her dread diary with horror fills.
Not the grofs at alone employs her pen;
She reconnoitres fancy's airy band,
A watchful foe the formidable fpy,
Liftening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp:
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And fteals our embryos of iniquity.
As all rapacious ufurers conceal

Their doomsday-book from all-confuming heirs ;
Thus, with indulgence moft fevere, she treats
Us fpendthrifts of ineftimable time;
Unnoted, notes each moment mifapply'd;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brafs
Writes our whole hiftory; which death fhall read
In every pale delinquent's private ear;
And judgment publish; publish to more worlds
Than this; and endlefs age in groans refound.
Lorenzo, fuck that fleeper in thy breast!

Such is her flumber; and her vengeance fuch
For flighted counfel; fuch thy future peace!
And think'st thou still thou canst be wife too foon?
But why on time fo lavish is my fong?
On this great theme kind nature keeps a school,
To teach her fons herself. Each night we die,
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 fuicide, where more than blood is fpilt.
Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven 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 irreversible, entire, extreme,

Endless, hair-hung, breeze-fhaken, o'er the gulf
A moment trembles; drops and man, for whom
All elfe is in alarim! man, the fole cause

Of this surrounding florm! and yet he fleeps,
As the ftorm rock'd to reft.-Throw years away!
Throw empires, and be blameless Moments feize;
Heaven's on their wing: A moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day fland
ftill,

Bid him drive back his car, and reimport
The period paft, re-give the given hour.
Lorenzo, more than miracles we want;
Lorenzo-O for yesterdays to come!

Such is the language of the man awake;
His ardour fuch, for what oppresses thee.
And is his ardour vain, Lorenzo? No;
That more than miracle the gods indulge;
To-day is yesterday return'd; return'd
Full power'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn,
And reinstate us on the rock of peace.
Let it not fhare its predeceffor's fate;
Nor, like its elder fifters, 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 heaven?

Where fhall I find bim? 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 flowers?
Your golden wings, now hovering o'er him, shed
Protection: now, are waving in applaufe
To that bleft fon of forefight! lord of fate!
That awful independent on to-morrow!
Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past;
Whole yesterdays 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 realties expir'd;

Renounc'd all correfpondence with the skies;
Our freedom chain'd; quite winglefs our defire;
In fenfe dark-prison'd all that ought to foar;
Frone to the centre; crawling in the duft;
Difmounted every great and glorious aim;
Embruted every faculty divine;

Heart-bury'd in the rubbish of the world.
The world, that gulf of fouls, immortal fouls,
Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire
To reach the diftant fkies, and triumph there
On thrones, which fhall not mourn their mafters
chang'd;

Though we from earth; ethereal, they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man.
Who venerate themselves, the world defpife.
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: 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!