No blank, no trifle Nature made, or meant.
Virtue, or purpos'd virtue, still be thine ;
This cancels thy complaint at once; this leaves
In act no trifle, and no 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 pooreft hours;
Immense revenue! ev'ry moment pays.
If nothing more than purpose in thy pow'r;
Thy purpofe firm, is equal to the deed:
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, as 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.
On all important Time, thro' ev'ry age,
Tho' much, and warm, the wife have urg'd; the man
Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.
"I've loft a day.”—The prince who nobly cry'd,
Had been an emperor without his crown ;
Of Rome? Say, rather, lord of human race:
He fpoke, as if deputed by mankind.
So fhould all speak: fo Reason speaks in all;
From the foft whispers of that God in mañ,
Why fly to Folly, why to phrenfy fly,
For rescue from the bleffings 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,
Js 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;
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, most 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 Leifure 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! Prisons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if prisons set us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel! years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope 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 past by; what then is seen,
But his broad pinions, swifter 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 caufe and cure explore.
Not fhort Heav'n's bounty; boundless our expence ;
No niggard, Nature; men are prodigals.
We wafte, not ufe our time; we breathe, not live.
Time wafted is exiftence; us'd, is life.
And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings, and oppresses with enormous weight,
And why? fince Time was giv'n for use, not wafte,
Injoin'd to fly; with tempeft, tide, and ftars,
To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man ;
Time's ufe was doom'd a pleasure; wafte, a pain;
That man might feel his error, if unseen:
And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure;
Not, blund'ring, fplit on idlenefs 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 the rack; the rack of reft,
To fouls most adverfe, 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 quarrel with ourselves;
Our thoughts at enmity; our hofom-broil;
We push Time from us, and we wish him back;
Lavish of luftrums, and yet fond of life;
Life we think long, and short; Death seek, and shun;
Body and foul, like peevish man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loth part.
Oh the dark days of Vanity! while here,
How taftelefs! 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.
If Time past,
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 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: fee, 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 against, what wonders can he do!
And will; to stand blank neuter he difdains.
Not on those terms was Time (Heav'n's stranger!)fent On his important embassy to man.
Lorenzo! no: on the long-deftin'd hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of wond'rous birth,
When the Dread Sire, on emanation bent,
And, big with Nature, ́rising in his might,
Call'd forth Creation (for then Time was born),
By Godhead ftreaming thro' a thousand worlds;
Not on thofe terms, from the great days of Heaven,
From old Eternity's myfterious orb,
Was Time cut off, and cast beneath the skies ;
The fkies, 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 rest,
And join anew Eternity, his fire;
In his immutability to nest,
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, fhort day's too rapid flight?
Know'ft thou, or what thou doft, or what is done?
Man flies from Time, and Time from Man; too soon
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