We thwart the DEITY; and 'tis decreed,
Who thwart his will shall contradict their own:
Hence our unnatural 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.

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 every day deceased;
And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns :
Nor death, nor life delight us—if time past,
And time possess'd, both pain us, what can please ?
That which the DEITY to please ordain'd—
Time used: 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
Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's—Time's a God:
Hast thou ne'er heard of time's omnipotence ?
For, or against, what wonders can he do—
And will ! to stand blank neuter he disdains.

To man's false opticks, 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 expence;
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 Heaven design'd;
He that has none, must make them, or be wretched:
Cares are employments; and without employ
The soul is on the 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;

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
Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's—Time's a God:
Hast thou ne'er heard of time's omnipotence?
For, or against, what wonders can he do—
And will! to stand blank neuter he disdains.

recto 81978.43.1353 ba-obj- 2275 -0001

Yale Center for British Art, 2010

26

Not on those terms was time, heaven's stranger, sent
On his important embassy to man.

LORENZO! no: on the long-destined hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of wondrous 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 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;
The skies, 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 numerous wings, around him, as he flies;
Or rather, as unequal plumes they shape
His ample pinions, swift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his ancient rest,
And join anew eternity his sire;
In his immutability to nest,
When worlds, that count his circles now, unhinged,
Fate the loud signal sounding, headlong rush
To timeless night and chaos, whence they rose.

Why spur the speedy? why with levities
New-wing thy short, short day's too rapid flight?
Knowst thou, or what thou dost, or what is done?
Man flies from time, and time from man, too soon
In sad divorce this double flight must end;