For rescue 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 pow'r ethereal, only not ador'd.
Ah! how unjust to nature, and himself,
Is thoughtlefs, 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;
Torture invention, all expedients tire,
To lash the ling ring moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves.
Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer
(For Nature's voice unftifled would recall)
Drives headlong tow'rds the precipice of death;
Death, moft our dread; death thus more dreadful made:
O what a riddle of abfurdity!
Leifure is pain; takes off our chariot-wheels;
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Bleft leisure is our curfe; 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! prifons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if prisons fet us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
VOL. III.
C
We call him cruel; years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd.
To man's false 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 strong,
Rueful, aghaft! cry out on his career.
Leave to thy foes these errors, and these ills
To nature juft, their Cause and Cure explore.
Not short heav'n's bounty, boundless our expence ;
No niggard, nature; men are prodigals.
We wafte, not use our time; we breathe, not live.
Time wafted is existence, us'd is life.
And bare exiftence, man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings, and oppreffes with enormous weight.
And why? fince Time was giv'n for use, not waste,
Injoin'd to fly; with tempeft, tide, and ftars,
To keep his fpeed, nor ever wait for man;
Time's ufe was doom'd a pleasure Waste, a pain;
That man might feel his error, if unfeen:
And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure ;
Not, blund'ring, split on idleness for ease.
Life's cares are comforts; fuch by heav'n defign'd;
He that has none, must make them, or be wretched.
Cares are employments; and without employ
The foul is on a rack; the rack of rest,
To fouls moft 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, fhall contradict their own.
Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves;
Our thoughts at enmity; our bofom-broil;
We push time from us, and we wish him back
Lavish of luftrums, and yet fond of life;
Life we think long, and fhort; Death feek, and fhun;
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 tastelefs! and how terrible, when gone!
Gone? they ne'er go; when past, they haunt us ftill; The spirit walks of ev'ry day deceas'd;
And fmiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
Nor death, nor life delight us.
And time poffeft, both pain us,
what can please That which the Deity to please ordain'd,
Time us'd. The man who confecrates his hours
By vig'rous effort, and an honeft aim,
At once he draws the fting of life and death;
He walks with Nature; and her paths are peace.
Our error's cause 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 elfe
Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's.-Time's a god.
Halt thou he'er heard of Time's omnipotence?
C 2
For, or againft, what wonders he can do!
And will: To ftand blank neuter he difdains.
Not on thofe terms was Time (heav'n's ftranger!) fent
On his important embaffy to man.
LORENZO no: On the long-deftin'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 ftreaming thro' 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 num'rous wings around him, as he flies:
Or, rather, as unequal plumes they shape
His ample pinions, fwift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his antient 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 rush
To timeless night and chaos, whence they rofe.
Why fpur the speedy? Why with levities
New-wing thy fhort, short day's too rapid flight?
Know'ft thou, or what thou dost, or what is done?
Man flies from Time, and Time from man; too foon
In fad divorce this double flight must end:
And then, where are we? where, LORENZO! then,
Thy fports 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 fpin,
(As fifter lilies might) if not so wise
As Solomon, more fumptuous to the fight!
Ye delicate! who nothing can fupport,
Yourselves moft infupportable! for whom
The winter rofe muft blow, the fun put on
A brighter beam in Leo; filky-foft
Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid;
And other worlds fend odours, fawce, and fong,
And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign looms!
Oye LORENZOs of our age! who deem
One moment unamus'd, a mifery
Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For ev'ry bawble drivel'd o'er by sense;
For rattles, and conceits of ev'ry caft,
For change of follies, and relays of joy,
To drag your patient through the tedious length
Of a short winter's day-fay, fages! fay,
Wit's oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams!
How will you weather an eternal night,
Where fuch expedients fail?
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