In fad 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. 1
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 fifter lilies might) if not fo wife
As Solomon, more fumptuous to the fight!
Ye delicate! who nothing can support,
Yourselves moft infupportable! for whom
The winter rose must blow, the Sun put on
A brighter beam in Leo; filky-foft
Favonius breathe ftill fofter, or be chid;
And other worlds fend odours, fawce, and fong,
And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign looms!
O ye Lorenzo's of our age! who deem
One moment unamus'd, a mifery
Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For ev'ry bawble, drivell'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 thro' the tedious length
Of a short 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 treach'rous Confcience, while fhe feems to fleep
On rofe and myrtle, lull'd with fyren song;
While fhe 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; See, from behind her fecret ftand,
The fly informer minutes ev'ry 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,
Lift'ning, 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 doomfday-book from all-confuming heirs;
Thus, with indulgence moft fevere, fhe treats
Us fpendthrifts of ineftimable Time;
Unnoted, notes each moment misapply'd;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brafs,
Writes our whole history; which Death shall read
In ev'ry pale delinquent's private ear;
And Judgment publish; publish to more worlds
Than this; and endless age in groans refound.
Lorenzo, fuch that fleeper in thy breaft!
Such is her flumber; and her vengeance fuch
For flighted counsel; fuch thy future peace!
And think'ft thou ftill thou can't be wife too foon?
But why on Time fo lavish is my song?
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 thall we kill each day? If Trifling kills,
Sure Vice muft butcher. O what heaps of flain
Cry out for vengeance on us.
Time deftroy'd
Is fuicide, 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 univerfal, wing'd Difpatch,
And ardent Energy, fupinely yawns?————
Man fleeps; and man alone; and man, whose fate,
Fate irreversible, intire, extreme,
Endless, hair-hung, breeze shaken, o'er the gulph
A moment trembles; drops! and man, for whom
All else is in alarm; man, the fole caufe
Of this furrounding ftorm! And yet he fleeps,
As the ftorm rock'd to reft.- Throw years away?
Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments feize;
Heav'n's on their wing: a moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid Day ftand still,
Bid him drive back his car, and reimport
The period past. Regive 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 oppreffes thee.
And is his ardour vain, Lorenzo? No;
That more than miracle the gods indulge ;
VOL. II.
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 share 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 shall I find Him ?---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 hov'ring o'er him, shed
Protection; now, are waving in applause
To that bleft son of Forefight! lord of Fate!
That awful independent on To-morrow!
Whofe 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! Paft 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 paffions 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 Senfe dark-prifon'd all that ought to foar; Prone to the centre; crawling in the duft;
Difmounted ev'ry great and glorious aim;
Embruted ev'ry 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 firet
To reach the diftant fkies, and triumph there,
On thrones which fhall not mourn their masters
chang'd;
Tho' 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 nood-tide ray,
And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the fhroud.
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!
Is Death at distance? No: he has been on thee; And giv'n fure earnest of his final blow.
Thofe Hours, which lately smil'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 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 darknessand the stars are duft.
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