ON TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP.
To the Right Honourable the Earl of Wilmington.
WHEN the cock crew he wept,-smote by that eye
Which looks on me, on all; that Pow'r who bids
This midnight sentinel, with clarion shrill,
(Emblem of that which shall awake the dead)
Rouse souls from slumber into thoughts of Heav'n.
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.
Lorenzo! let me turn my thoughts on thee;
And thine on themes may profit; profit there
Where most thy need: themes, too, the genuine
growth
Of dear Philander's dust. He thus, though dead, May still befriend-What themes? Time's wondrous price,
Death, friendship, and Philander's final scene!
So could I touch these themes as might obtain Thine ear, nor leave thy heart quite disengaged, 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 thrift, that avarice of time,
(0 glorious avarice!) thought of death inspires,
As rumour'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 pris'ner 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 mortel, 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 Heav'n 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 med'cines cannot cure?
When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight,
As lands and cities with their glitt'ring 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-prized sports?
He pleads time's num'rous 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 purposed 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 ali to gold:
This the good heart's prerogative to raise
A royal tribute from the poorest hours;
Immense revenue! ev'ry moment pays.
If nothing more than purpose in thy pow'r,
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
On all important time, through every age,
Tho' much, and warm, the wise have urged; the man
Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour.
I've lost a day'-the prince who nobly cried,
Had been an emperor without his crown;
Of Rome say rather lord of human race!
He spoke as if deputed by mankind.
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 blessings 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 pow'r ethereal, only not adored.
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 ling'ring moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves.
Art, brainless art! our furious charioteer,
(For Nature's voice unstifled would recal)
Drives headlong towards the precipice of death,
Death most our dread; death thus more dreadful
made;
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 Heav'n'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, used 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 labour for his cure;
Not blund'ring, split on idleness for ease.
Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd;
He that hath 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;
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 shall contradict their own,
Hence our unnat'ral quarrel 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.
O 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 used. The man who consecrates his hours
By vig'rous 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
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