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 ncw, 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! O ye Lorenzos of our age! who deem One moment unamused a misery
Not made for feeble man! who call aloud For every bauble drivel'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 short winter's daysay, 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, The sly informer minutes every fault, And her dread diary with horror fills.
from behind her secret stand,
Not the gross act alone employs her pen;
She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band.
A watchful foe! the formidable spy
Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp,
Our dawning purposes of heart explores, r 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, vhich 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
To teach her sons herself.
Each morn are born anew
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. 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 universal, wing'd despatch,
And ardent energy, supinely yawns ?--
Man sleeps, and man alone; and man, whose fate, Fate irreversible, entire, extreme,
Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulf 300 A moment trembles; drops! and man, for whom All else is in alarm; man, the sole cause
Of this surrounding storm! and yet he sleeps, As the storm rock'd to rest!-Throw years away ? Throw empires, and be blameless: moments seize, 305 Heaven's on their wing; a moment we may wish, When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid Day stand still, Bid him drive back his car, and reimport The period past, regive the given hour. Lerenzo! more than miracles we want. Lorenzo-O for yesterdays to come!"
Such is the language of the man awake, His ardour such 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 share its predecessor's fate, Nor, like its elder sisters, die a fool. Shall it evaporate in fume, fly off Fuliginous, and stain us deeper still?
Shall we be poorer for the plenty pour'd?
More wretched for the clemencies of Heaven?
Where shall I find him? Angels tell me where
You know him he is near you; point him out. Shall I see glories beaming from his brow, Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers? Your golden wings, now hovering o'er him, shed Protection; now are waving in applause To that bless'd son of foresight! lord of Fate ! That awful independent on to-morrow! Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past; Whose 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 prospect by the grave; All feeling of futurity benumb'd;
All godlike passion for eternals quench'd; All relish of realities expired;
Renounced all correspondence with the skies;
Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar; Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; Dismounted every great and glorious aim; Imbruted every faculty divine;
Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world,
The world, that gulf of souls, immortal souls,
Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire
To reach the distant skies, and triumph there
On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters
Though we from earth, ethereal they that fell. Such veneration due, O man tó 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 noontide ray, And wraps our thoughts 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 arou
We read their monuments; we sigh; and while We sigh we sink; and are what we deplored: Lamenting or lamented all our lot!
Is Death at distance? No; he has been on thee, And given sure earnest of his final blow. Those hours that lately smiled, where are they now? Pallid to thought, and ghastly! drown'd, all drown'd In that great deep which nothing disembogues! 370 And, dying, they bequeath'd thee small renown. The rest 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.
'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to Heaven, And how they might have borne more welcome news Their answers form what men Experience call; If Wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst foe. 380 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, though gray, is still a child. Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire; Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore. Art thou so moor'd thou canst not disengage, Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future scenes? Since by life's passing breath, blown up from earth, Light as the summer's dust, we take in air A moment's giddy flight, and fall again,
Join the dull mass, increase the trodden soil, And sleep, till Earth herself shall be no more; Since then (as emmets, their small world o'erthrown) We, sore amazed, from out earth's ruins crawl, And rise to fate extreme of foul or fair,
As man's own choice, (controller of the skies!) As man's despotic will, perhaps one hour,
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