This double night, transmit one pitying ray,
To lighten, and to cheer. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe.)
Lead it through various scenes of life and death,
And from each scene, the noblest truths inspire.
Nor less inspire my conduct, than my song;
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd

PREFACE.

As the occasion of this poem was real, not fictitious;
so the method pursued in it was rather imposed,
by what spontaneously arose in the author's mind
on that occasion, than meditated or designed; which On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
will appear very probable from the nature of it.
For it differs from the common mode of poetry, But from its loss. To give it then a tongue,
which is, from long narrations to draw short morals. Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
Here, on the contrary, the narrative is short, and I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
the morality arising from it makes the bulk of the It is the knell of my departed hours:
poem. The reason of it is, that the facts men- Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
tioned did naturally pour these moral reflections It is the signal that demands dispatch;
on the thought of the writer.
How much is to be done? My hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what? a fathomless abyss!
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How passing wonder He, who made him such!
Who center'd in our make such strange extremes!
From different natures marvellously mixt,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt!
Though sullied and dishonor'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!

THE COMPLAINT:

OR,
NIGHT-THOUGHTS.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

ON

LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

TO THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW, SPEAKER
OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

TIR'D Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose,
I wake: How happy they, who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought, Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
From wave to wave of fancied misery,
At random drove, her helm of reason lost.
Though now restor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) severer for severe.
The Day too short for my distress; and Night,
E'en in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sun-shine to the color of my fate.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps. "Tis, as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd;
Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.

Silence and Darkness! solemn sisters! twins
From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought
To reason, and on reason build resolve,

A worm! a god!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surpris'd, aghast,
And wondering at her own: How Reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,
Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd!
What can preserve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

"Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof:
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathless woods; or, down the craggy steep
Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool;
Or scal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds,
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;
Active, aërial, towering, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall.

(That column of true majesty in man,)
Assist me: I will thank you in the grave;
The grave, your kingdom: there this frame shall fall E'en silent night proclaims my soul immortal:

A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.
But what are ye?—

Thou, who didst put to flight

Primeval Silence, when the morning stars,
Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball!

O thou, whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark, the Sun; strike wisdom from my soul;
My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest.

Through this opaque of Nature, and of soul,

69

E'en silent night proclaims eternal day.

For human weal, Heaven husbands all events;
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.
Why then their loss deplore, that are not lost?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,
In infidel distress? Are angels there?
Slumbers, rak'd up in dust, ethereal fire?

They live! they greatly live a life on Earth
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall

2 V 2

On me, more justly number'd with the dead.
This is the desert, this the solitude:
How populous, how vital, is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty shades!
All, all on Earth, is shadow, all beyond
Is substance; the reverse is folly's creed :
How solid all, where change shall be no more!
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,
The twilight of our day, the vestibule :
Life's theatre as yet is shut, and Death,
Strong Death, alone can heave the massy bar,
This gross impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryoes of existence free.
From real life, but little more remote
Is he, not yet a candidate for light,
The future embryo, slumbering in his sire.
Embryoes we must be, till we burst the shell,
Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,
The life of gods, O transport! and of man.
Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh.
Prisoner of Earth, and pent beneath the Moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by Heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there,
Where seraphs gather immortality,

On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow,
In his full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!

Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death expire! O Cynthia! why so pale? Dost thou lament

And is it in the flight of threescore years,
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

Thy wretched neighbor? Grieve to see thy wheel
Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life?
How wanes my borrow'd bliss! from fortune's smile
Precarious courtesy! not virtue's sure,
Self-given, solar ray of sound delight.

In every varied posture, place, and hour,
How widow'd every thought of every joy!
Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!
Through the dark postern of time long elaps'd,
Led softly, by the stillness of the night,
Led, like a murderer, (and such it proves!)
Strays (wretched rover!) o'er the pleasing past;
In quest of wretchedness perversely strays,
And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts
Of my departed joys; a numerous train!
I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blasted clusters I lament;
I tremble at the blessings once so dear;
And every pleasure pains me to the heart.

Where falls this censure? It o'erwhelms myself;
How was my heart incrusted by the world!
O how self-fetter'd was my grovelling soul!
How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round
In silken thought, which reptile Fancy spun,
Till darken'd Reason lay quite clouded o'er
With soft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!
Night-visions may befriend (as sung above :)
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things impossible! (Could sleep do more ?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sun-shine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!
Till at Death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Where now my frenzy's pompous furniture?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!
The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss! it breaks at every breeze.

Yet why complain? or why complain for one'
Hangs out the Sun his lustre but for me,
The single man? Are angels all beside?
I mourn for millions: 'tis the common lot;
In this shape, or in that, has Fate entail'd
The mother's throes on all of woman born,
Not more the children, than sure heirs, of pain.

War, Famine, Pest, Volcano, Storm, and Fire,
Intestine broils, Oppression, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind.
God's image disinherited of day,
Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a Sun was made.
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plow the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread through realms their valor sav'd,
If so the tyrant, or his minion, doom.

O ye blest scenes of permanent delight! Full, above measure! lasting, beyond bound! A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.

Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy,
And quite unparadise the realms of light.
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres;
The baleful influence of whose giddy dance
Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions every hour;
And rarely for the better; or the best,
More mortal than the common births of fate.
Each moment has its sickle, emulous

Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays
His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.

Bliss! sublunary bliss!-proud words, and vain!
Implicit treason to divine decree!

A bold invasion of the rights of Heaven!
I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace!
What darts of agony had miss'd my heart!

Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
The Sun himself by thy permission shines;
And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere.
Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust
Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean?
Why thy peculiar rancor wreak'd on me?
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
Thy shaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was slain
And thrice, ere thrice yon Moon had fill'd her horn

Want, and incurable Disease, (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize
At once; and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hospitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for sad admission there!
What numbers, once in Fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of Charity!

To shock us more, solicit it in vain!

Ye silken sons of pleasure! since in pains
You rue more modish visits, visit here,
And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce
Surfeit's dominion o'er you: but so great
Your impudence, you blush at what is right.

Happy! did sorrow seize on such alone.
Not prudence can defend, or virtue save;
Disease invades the chastest temperance;
And punishment the guiltless; and alarm,
Through thickest shades, pursues the fond of peace.
Man's caution often into danger turns;
And his guard, falling, crushes him to death.
Not happiness itself makes good her name;
Our very wishes give us not our wish.
How distant oft the thing we dote on most,
From that for which we dote, felicity!
The smoothest course of Nature has its pains!
And truest friends, through error, wound our rest.
Without misfortune, what calamities!

Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs,
The salutary censure of a friend.

Thou happy wretch! by blindness thou art blest;
By dotage dandled to perpetual smiles.
Know, smiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd!
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor severe,
But rises in demand for her delay;
She makes a scourge of past prosperity,
To sting thee more, and double thy distress.

Lorenzo, Fortune makes her court to thee,
Thy fond heart dances, while the Syren sings.

Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind;
I would not damp, but to secure thy joys.
Think not that fear is sacred to the storm:
Stand on thy guard against the smiles of Fate.
Is Heaven tremendous in its frowns? Most sure;
And in its favors formidable too:

And what hostilities, without a foe!

Nor are foes wanting to the best on Earth.
But endless is the list of human ills,
And sighs might sooner fail, than cause to sigh.
A part how small of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,
Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands;
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death.
Such is Earth's melancholy map! but, far
More sad! this Earth is a true map of man.
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss,
Loud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite,
Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,
And threatening fate wide opens to devour.

What then am I, who sorrow for myself!
In age, in infancy, from others' aid
Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.
That, Nature's first, last lesson to mankind:
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels.
More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts;
And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.
Nor virtue, more than prudence, bids me give
Swoln thought a second channel; who divide,
They weaken too, the torrent of their grief.
Take, then, O World! thy much-indebted tear:
How sad a sight is human happiness,
To those whose thought can pierce beyond an hour!
O thou! whate'er thou art, whose heart exults!
Wouldst thou I should congratulate my fate?

Our mountain-hopes, spin out eternal schemes,

I know thou wouldst; thy pride demands it from me. As we the fatal sisters could out-spin,

And, big with life's futurities, expire.

Not e'en Philander had bespoke his shroud :
Nor had he cause; a warning was denied:
How many fall as sudden, not as safe!
As sudden, though for years admonish'd home.
Of human ills the last extreme beware,
Beware, Lorenzo! a slow sudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate surprise!
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead ;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
|Procrastination is the thief of time;

Its favors here are trials, not rewards;
A call to duty, not discharge from care;
And should alarm us, full as much as woes;
Awake us to their cause and consequence ;
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our desert;
Awe Nature's tumult, and chastise her joys,
Lest, while we clasp, we kill them; nay, invert
To worse than simple misery, their charms
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bosom-friendships to resentment sour'd,
With rage envenom'd rise against our peace
Beware what Earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.

Mine died with thee, Philander! thy last sigh
Dissolv'd the charm; the disenchanted Earth
Lost all her lustre. Where her glittering towers?
Her golden mountains, where? all darken'd down
To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears;
The great magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece
Of outcast earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! Thy darling hope so near,
(Long-labor'd prize!) O how ambition flush'd
Thy glowing cheek! Ambition truly great,
Of virtuous praise. Death's subtle seed within
(Sly, treacherous miner!) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rose so red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!
Man's foresight is conditionally wise;
Lorenzo! wisdom into folly turns

Oft, the first instant, its idea fair

To laboring thought is born. How dim our eye!
The present moment terminates our sight;
Clouds, thick as those on doomsday, drown the next;
We penetrate, we prophesy in vain.

Time is dealt out by particles; and each,
Ere mingled with the streaming sands of life,
By Fate's inviolable oath is sworn
Deep silence, "Where eternity begins."

By Nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's no prerogative in human hours.
In human hearts what bolder thought can rise
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? in another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is sure to none; and yet on this perhaps,
This peradventure, infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant, we build

Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born.

All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel: and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;

At least, their own; their future selves applaud;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead!
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone ;
"Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;

And scarce in human wisdom, to do more.

As from the wing no scar the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thoughts of death.
E'en with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
Can I forget Philander? That were strange!
O my full heart!—But should I give it vent,
The longest night, though longer far, would fail,
And the lark listen to my midnight song.

The sprightly lark's shrill matin wakes the morn;
Grief's sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast,
I strive, with wakeful melody, to cheer
The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel! like thee,
And call the stars to listen: every star
Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay.
Yet be not vain; there are, who thine excel,
And charm through distant ages: wrapt in shade,
Prisoner of darkness! to the silent hours,
How often I repeat their rage divine,

To lull my griefs, and steal my heart from woe!
I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire.
Dark, though not blind, like thee, Mæonides!
Or, Milton! thee; ah, could I reach your strain!
Or his, who made Mæonides our own.
Man too he sung: immortal man I sing ;
Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life;
What, now, but immortality can please?
O had he press'd his theme, pursued the track,
Which opens out of darkness into day!
O had he, mounted on his wing of fire,
Soar'd where I sink, and sung immortal man!
How had it blest mankind, and rescued me!

ON

TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP.

TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF WILMINGTON,

When the cock crew, he wept"-smote by that eye
Which looks on me, on all: that power, who bids
This midnight sentinel, with clarion shrill,
Emblem of that which shall awake the dead,
Rouse souls from slumber, into thoughts of Heaven.
Shall I, too, weep? Where then is fortitude ?
And, fortitude abandon'd, where is man?

I know the terms on which he sees the light;
He that is born, is listed; life is war;
Eternal war with woe. Who bears it best,
Deserves it least.-On other themes I'll dwell.

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And thine, on themes may profit; profit there
Where most they need. Themes, too, the genuine

1

growth

And that through every stage: when young, indeed, Lorenzo! let me turn my thoughts on thee,
In full content we, sometimes, nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.

Of dear Philander's dust. He thus, though dead,
May still befriend-What themes? Time's wondrous

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden
dread;

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found.

price,

Death, friendship, and Philander's final scene.
So could I touch these themes, as might obtain
Thine ear, nor leave thy heart quite disengag'd,
The good deed would delight me; half impress
On my dark cloud an Iris; and from grief
Call glory.-Dost thou mourn Philander's fate?
I know thou say'st it: Says thy life the same?
He mourns the dead, who lives as they desire.
Where is that thirst, that avarice of time,
(O glorious avarice!) thought of death inspires,
As rumor'd robberies endear our gold?
O time! than gold more sacred; more a load
Than lead, to fools; and fools reputed wise.
What moment granted man without account?
What years are squander'd, wisdom's debt unpaid!
Our wealth in days, all due to that discharge.
Haste, haste, he lies in wait, he's at the door,
Insidious Death! should his strong hand arrest,
No composition sets the prisoner free.
Eternity's inexorable chain

Fast binds; and vengeance claims the full arrear.
How late I shudder'd on the brink! how late
Life call'd for her last refuge in despair!
That time is mine, O Mead! to thee I owe;
Fain would I pay thee with eternity.
But ill my genius answers my desire;
My sickly song is mortal, past thy cure.
Accept the will;-that dies not with my strain.
For what calls thy disease, Lorenzo? not
For Esculapian, but for moral aid.
Thou think'st it folly to be wise too soon.
Youth is not rich in time, it may be poor;
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment, but in purchase of its worth;
And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell
Part with it as with life, reluctant; big
With holy hope of nobler time to come;
Time higher aim'd, still nearer the great mark
Of men and angels; virtue more divine.

Is this our duty, wisdom, glory, gain?
(These Heaven benign in vital union binds)
And sport we like the natives of the bough,
When vernal suns inspire? Amusement reigns

Man's great demand: to trifle, is to live:
And is it then a trifle, too, to die?

Thou say'st I preach, Lorenzo! 'tis confest.
What if, for once, I preach thee quite awake?
Who wants amusement in the flame of battle?
Is it not treason to the soul immortal,
Her foes in arms, eternity the prize?

Will toys amuse, when medicines cannot cure?
When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight,
As lands, and cities with their glittering spires,
To the poor shatter'd bark, by sudden storm
Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there?
Will toys amuse? No: thrones will then be toys,
And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale.

Redeem we time?-Its loss we dearly buy.
What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd sports?
He pleads time's numerous blanks; he loudly
pleads

The straw-like trifles on life's common stream.
From whom those blanks and trifles, but from thee?
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 blest art of turning all to gold;
This the good heart's prerogative to raise
A royal tribute from the poorest hours;
Immense revenue! every moment pays,
If nothing more than purpose in thy power;
Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed:
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts 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 Cares are employments, and without employ

Heaven.

The soul is on a rack; the rack of rest,

O what a riddle of absurdity!

Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot-wheels;

How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse; 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 false optics (from his folly false)
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems 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, aghast! cry out on his career.

Leave to thy foes these errors, and these ills;
To Nature just, their cause and cure explore.
Not short Heaven's bounty, boundless our expense;
No niggard, Nature; men are prodigals.

We waste, not use our time; we breathe, not live.
Time wasted is existence, us'd is life,

And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings, and oppresses with enormous weight.
And why? since Time was given for use, not waste,
Enjoin'd to fly; with tempest, tide, and stars,
To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man;
Time's use was doom'd a pleasure; waste, a pain;
That man might feel his error, if unseen:
And, feeling, fly to labor for his cure;
Not, blundering, split on idleness for ease.

Life's cares are comforts; such by Heaven design'd;
He that has none, must make them, or be wretched.

So should all speak: so Reason speaks in all :
From the soft whispers of that God in man,
Why fly to folly, why to frenzy fly,

For rescue from the blessing we possess?
Time, the supreme !-Time is Eternity;
Pregnant with all eternity can give ;
Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile.
Who murders time, he crushes in the birth
A power ethereal, only not adorn'd.

Ah! how unjust to Nature and himself,
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
Like children babbling nonsense in their sports,
We censure Nature for a span too short;
That span too short, we tax as tedious too;
Torture invention, all expedients tire,
To lash the lingering moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves.
Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer
(For Nature's voice unstifled would recall)
Drives headlong towards the precipice of death;
Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful
made:

To souls most adverse; action all their joy.

Here then, the riddle, mark'd above, unfolds
When 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, shall contradict their own.
Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves;
Our thoughts at enmity; our bosom-broil;
We push Time from us, and we wish him back:
Lavish of lustrums, and yet fond of life;
Life we think long, and short; Death seek, and

shun :
Body and soul, like peevish man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loth to part.

Oh the dark days of vanity! while here,
How tasteless! and how terrible, when gone!
Gone! they ne'er go; when past, they haunt us

still;

The spirit walks of ev'ry day deceased;
And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
Nor death, nor life delight us. If time past,
And time possest, both pain us, what can please?
That which the Deity to please ordain'd,
Time us'd. The man who consecrates his hours
By vigorous effort, and an honest aim,

At once he draws the sting of life and death;
He walks with Nature; and her paths are peace.

Our error's cause and cure are seen: see next
Time's nature, origin, importance, speed;
And thy great gain from urging his career.-
All-sensual man, because untouch'd, unseen,
He looks on Time as nothing. Nothing else