Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd: 140 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. 145 We waste, not use our time; we breathe, not live. 150 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. 155 Time's use was doom'd a pleasure, waste a pain, That man might feel his error if unseen, And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure ; Not, blundering, split on idleness for ease. 159 Life's cares are comforts; such by Heaven design'd; He that has none must make them, or be wretched. Cares are employments, and without employ The soul is on a rack, the rack of rest, To souls most adverse, action all their joy. Here then the riddle, mark'd above, unfolds; 165 170 Life we think long and short, death seek and shun: Oh the dark days of vanity! while here How tasteless! and how terrible when gone! 175 Gone? they ne'er go; when pass'd, they haunt us still. The spirit walks of every day deceased, And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns. 180 Nor death nor life delight us. If time past And time possess'd both pain us, what can please! Time used. The man who consecrates his hours 185 At once he draws the sting of life and death; Our error's cause and cure are seen: see next 190 195 Not on those terms was Time (Heaven's stranger!) sent On his important embassy to man. Lorenzo! no: on the long-destined hour, 200 From everlasting ages growing ripe, That memorable hour of wondrous birth, When the Dread Sire, cn emanation bent, And big with Nature, rising in his might, Call'd forth Creation (for then Time was born) 205 By Godhead streaming through 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; 210 That horologe machinery divine. Hours, days, and months, and years, his children, play, Like numerous wings, around him, as he flies; Or rather, as unequal plumes they shape 213 His ample pinions, swift as darted flame, To gain his goal, to reach his ancient rest, In his immutability to nest, 219 When worlds, that count his circles ncw, unhinged Thy sports, thy pomps? I grant thee in a state 230 Has Death his fopperies? then well may Life 235 240 And other worlds send odours, sauce, and song, 245 One moment unamused a misery For every bauble drivel'¿ o'er by sense; Not made for feeble man! who call alond For change of follies and relays of joy, 250 To drag your patient through the tedious length Wit's oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams! How will you weather an eternal night, Where such expedients fail?— 255 O treacherous Conscience! while she seems to sleep On rose and myrtle, lull'd with siren song; While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop On headlong Appetite the slacken’d rein, And give us up to license, unrecall'd, 260 Unmark'd: see, from behind her secret stand, Our dawning purposes of heart explores, As all-rapacious usurers conceal 270 Their doomsday-book from all-consuming heirs, Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats 275 Unnoted, notes cach moment misapplied; 280 On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school 285 To teach her sons herself. Each night we dic; Each morn are born anew: each day a life' 290 And shall we kill each day? If trifling kills, And is there in creation what, amidst This tumult universal, wing'd despatch, 295 And ardent energy, supinely yawns?— Man sleeps, and man alone; and man, whose fate, Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulf 300 All else is in alarm; man, the sole cause Of this surrounding storm! and yet he sleeps, Such is the language of the man awake, 310 315 To-day is yesterday return'd; return'd Full power'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn, Let it not share its predecessor's fate, 320 Fuliginous, and stain us deeper still? Shall we be poorer for the plenty pour'd? More wretched for the clemencies of Heaven? 324 Where shall I find him Angels tell me where⚫ |