How will you weather an eternal night,
Where fuch expedients fail?
O treacherous Confcience! while she seems to flec
On rofe and myrtle, lull'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 Act alone employs her pen;
She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band,
A watchful foe! the formidable spy,
Liftening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp:
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And steals our embryos of iniquity.
As all-rapacious ufurers conceal
Their doomsday-book from all-confuming heirs;
Thus, with indulgence moft fevere, the 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 Judgement publifh; publish to more worlds.
Than this; and endless age in groans refound.
Lorenzo, fuch that Sleeper in thy breaft!
Such is her flumber; and her vengeance fuch
For flighted counfel; fuch thy future peace!
And think'st thou ftill thou can be wife too foon?
But why on Time so lavish is my song?
On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school,
To teach her fons herfelf. Each night we die,
Each morn are born anew: Each day, a ́life!
And shall we kill each day? If Trifling kills;
Sure Vice must butcher. O what heaps of flain
Cry out for vengeance on us! Time destroy'd
Is Suicide, 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, intire, extreme,
Endlefs, hair-hung, breeze-fhaken, o'er the gulph 300
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 ftorm rock'd to reft.-Throw Years away?
Throw Empires, and be blameless. Moments feize; 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, 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 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 reinftate 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 fain us deeper ftill?
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. 31 You know him: He is near you: Point him out: Shall I fee glories beaming from his brow? Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers? Your golden wings, now hovering o'er him, fhcd Protection; now, are waving in applaufe To that bleft fon of forefight! lord of fate! That awful independent on To-morrow! Whofe work is done; who triumphs in the Pafi; Whofe Yefterdays 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 god-like paffion for eternals quencht;
All relish of realities expir'd;
Renounc'd all correfpondence with the skies;
Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our defire;
In fense dark-prifon'd all that ought to fear;
Prone to the centre; crawling in the duž;
Difmounted every great and glorious aim;
Embruted every faculty divine;
Heart-bury'd in the rubbish of the world.
The world, that gulph of fouls, immortal fouls,
Souls elevate, angelic, wing`d with fire
To reach the disant skies, and triumph there
On thrones, which shall not mourn their mafters chang`d;
Though we from Earth; Eibereal, they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man.
Who venerate themselves, the world despise.
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 ftage 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 diftance? No: He has been on thee, And given fure earneft of his final blow. Thofe hours that lately fmil'd, where are they now? Pallid to thought, and ghaftly! drown'd, all drown'd In that great deep, which nothing difembogues! And, dying, they bequeath'd thee small 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 fun is darkness, and the stars are duft.
'Tis greatly wife to talk with our past hours;
And ask them, what report they bore to heaven;
And how they might have borne more welcome nev
Their answers form what men Experience call;
If Wisdom's friend, her beft; if not, worft foe.
O reconcile them! Kind Experience cries,
"There's nothing here, but what as nothing weig "The more our joy, the more we know it vain; And by fuccefs are tutor'd to despair."
Nor is it only thus, but must be fo.
Who knows not this, though 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 fummer's duft, we take in air
A moment's giddy flight, and fall again;
Join the dull mass, increase the trodden foil,
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 defpotic, will, perhaps one hour,
(O how omnipotent is time!) decrees ;
Should not each warning give a strong alarm?
Warning, far less than that of bofom torn
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