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The fly informer minutes every 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 whifpers of our camp;
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And steals our embryos of iniquity.

As all-rapacious ufurers conceal

Their doomsday-book from all-confuming heirs ;
Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats
Us fpendthrifts of inestimable time;
Unnoted, notes each moment mifapply'd;

In leaves more durable than leaves of brafs,
Writes our whole hiftory; which death fhall read
In every pale delinquent's private ear;

And judgment publifh; publish to more worlds
Than this; and endless age in

groans refound. Lorenzo, fuch that fleeper in thy breast!

Such is her flumber and her vengeance fuch;
For flighted counfel; fuch thy future peace!
And think'st thou ftill thou can't be wife too soon?
But why on time fo lavish is my fong?

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 shall we kill each day? if trifling kills;
Sure vice muft butcher. O what heaps of flain
Cry out for vengeance on us! time destroy'd
Is fuicide, where more than blood is fpilt.

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 dispatch,
And ardent energy, fupinely yawns?

Man fleeps; and man alone; and man, whofe fate,
Fate irreversible, entire, extreme,

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Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulph
A moment trembles; drops! and man, for whom
All else is in alarm; man, the sole cause
Of this furrounding storm! and yet he fleeps,
As the storm rock'd to reft.-Throw years away?
Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments feize.
Heaven's on their wing: a moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day ftand ftill,
Bid him drive back his car, recall, retake
Fate's hafty prey: implore him, reimport
The period paft, 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;
To-day is yesterday return'd; return’d
Full-power'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn,
And reinstate us on the rock of peace.
Let it not share its predeceffor's fate;
Nor, like its elder fifters, die a fool.

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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 heav'n?

Where fhall 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 flow'rs?
Your golden wings, now hov'ring o'er him, fhed
Protection; now are waving in applause
To that bleft fon of forefight! lord of fate!
That awful independent on to-morrow!
Whose 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! past hours,
If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight,
If folly bounds our prospect by the grave,
All feeling of futurity benumb'd;

All godlike paffion for eternals quench'd;
All relish of realities expir'd;

Renounc'd all correfpondence with the skies;
Our freedom chain'd; quite winglefs our defire;
In fenfe dark-prifon'd all that ought to foar;
Prone to the centre; crawling in the duft;
Difmounted every great and glorious aim;
Embruted every faculty divine;

Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world.

The world, that gulph of fouls, immortal fouls,
Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire

To reach the diftant fkies, and triumph there
On thrones, which shall not mourn their mafters chang'd,
Though we from earth; etherial, they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man.

Who venerate themfelves, 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 noon-tide ray,
And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the fhroud.
Life's little ftage is a fmall 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 given fure earnest of his final blow.
Those 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 fmall renown.
The reft 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 fun is darkness, and the stars are duft.

'Tis greatly wife to talk with our past hours; And ask them, what report they bore to heaven; And how they might have borne more welcome news. Their answers form what men experience call;

If wisdom's friend, her beft; if not, worst foe.

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O reconcile them! kind experience cries,

There's nothing here, but what as nothing weighs;

The more our joy, the more we know it vain;
And by fuccefs are tutor❜d to defpair.'

Nor is it only thus, but must be fo.

Who knows not this, though gray, are still a child.
Loofe then from earth the grasp of fond defire,
Weigh anchor, and fome happier clime explore.
Art thou fo moor'd thou can't not difengage,
Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future scenes?
Since, by life's paffing breath, blown up from earth,
Light, as the fummer's duft, we take in air
A moment's giddy flight, and fall again;
Join the dull mafs, increase the trodden foil,
And fleep till earth herself fhall be no more;
Since then (as emmets, their fmall world o'erthrown)
We, fore amaz'd, from out earth's ruins crawl,
And rife to fate extreme of foul or fair,
As man's own choice, (controuler of the skies!)
As man's defpotic will, perhaps one hour,
(O how omnipotent is time!) decrees;
Should not each warning give a strong alarm?
Warning, far lefs than that of bofom torn
From bofom, bleeding o'er the facred dead!
Should not each dial ftrike us as we pass,
Portentous, as the written wall, which ftruck,
O'er midnight bowls, the proud Affyrian pale,
Ere-while high-flush'd with infolence and wine?
Like that, the dial fpeaks; and points to thee,
Lorenzo! loth to break the banquet up.

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