Not unambitious; in the ruffled shroud,
Thy Parian tomb's triumphant arch beneath.
Has Death his fopperies? then well may Life
Put on her plume, and in her rainbow fhine.
Ye well-array'd! ye lilies of our land !
Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin,
(As fifter lilies might) if not fo wife
As Solomon, more fumptuous to the fight!
Ye delicate! who nothing can fupport,
Yourselves most infupportable! for whom
The winter rofe muft blow, the fun put on
A brighter beam in Leo; filky-soft
Favonius breathe ftill fofter, or be chid:
And other worlds fend odours, fauce, and fong,
And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign looms!
For change of follies and relays of joy,
To drag your patient thro' the tedious length
Of a fhort winter's day-fay, fages! fay,
Wit's oracles! fay, dreamers of
gay dreams!
How will you weather an eternal night,
Where fuch expedients fail?
O treach'rous Confcience! while the feems to fleep On rofe and myrtle, lall'd with Syren fong;
While the feems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong appetite the flacken'd rein,
And give us up to licence, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd;-fee, from behind her fecret stand,
The fly informer minutes ev'ry 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 moft fevere, the treats
Us fpendthrifts of ineftimable time;
Unnoted notes each moment mifapply'd ;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brafs
Writes our whole hiftory, which Death shall read
In ev'ry pale delinquent's private ear,
And judgment publish; 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'ft thou ftill thou canst be wife too foon?
But why on time fo lavish is my fon?
On this great theme kind nature keeps a school
To teach her fons herfelf. 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 deftroy'd
Is fuicide, where more than blood is spilt.
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, whose fate,
Fate irreversible, entire, extreme,
Endlefs, hair-hung, breeze fhaken, o'er the gulf 300
A moment trembles; drops! and man, for whom
All elfe is an alarm; man, the fole caufe
Of this furrounding storm! and yet he sleeps,
As the ftorm rock'd to reft.-Throw years away?
Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments feize, 305
Heaven's on their wing: a moment we may with,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid Day ftand ftill,
Bid him drive back his car, and reimport
The period paft, regive the giv'n 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-pow'r'd to cancel, expiate, raife, adorn,
And reinftate us on the rock of peace.
Let it not fhare its predeceffor's fate,
Nor, like its elder fifter's, die a fool.
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 heaven?
Where fhall I find him? Angels! tell me where: 325
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 flowers?
Your golden wings, now hov'ring o'er him, fhed
Protection; now are waving in applaufe
To that bleft fon of forefight! lord of fate!
That awful independent on to-morrow!
Whofe work is done; who triumphs in the paft;
Whose yesterdays look backwards with a fmile,
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly:
That common but opprobrious lot! Paft hours,
If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight,
If folly bounds our profpect 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 sense dark-prifon'd all that ought to foar
Prone to the centre; crawling in the duft;
Difmounted ev'ry great and glorious aim;
Imbruted ev'ry faculty divine;
Heart-bury'd in the rubbish of the world.
The world, that gulf of fouls, immortal fouls,
Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire
To reach the distant skies, and triumph there
On thrones, which fhall not mourn their masters chang'd;
Tho' we from earth, ethereal they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man!
Who venerate themselves the world despise.
For what, gay friend! is this escutcheon'd world,
Which hangs out death in one eternal night?
A night that glooms us in the noontide ray,
And wraps our thought at banquets in the shroud.
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 diftance? No; he has been on thee, And giv'n fure earneft of his final blow.
Thofe hours that lately fmil'd, where are they now?
Pallid to thought, and ghaftly! drown'd, all drown'd
In that great deep which nothing difembogues! 370
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 darknefs, 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 anfwers form what men Experience call; If Wisdom's friend, her beft; if not, worst foe. 380 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 despair."
Nor is it only thus, but must be so.
Who knows not this, tho' grey, is 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 canst 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 shall be no more;
Since then (as emmets, their small 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 (controller 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 less than that of bofom torn
From bofom, bleeding o'er the facred dead!
Should not each dial strike us as we pass,
Portentous, as the written wall which struck,
O'er midnight bowls, the proud Affyrian pale,
Erewhile high flush'd with infolence and wine?
Like that the dial speaks, and points to thee,
Lorenzo! loath to break thy banquet up.
"O man! thy kingdom is departing from thee,
"And while it lafts is emptier than my fhade."
Its filent language fuch: nor need'st thou call
Thy magi to decypher what it means.
Know, like the Median, fate is in thy walls:
Doft afk how? whence? Belshazzar-like, amaz'd.
Man's make enclofes the fure feeds of death;
Life feeds the murderer: ingrate! he thrives
On her own meal, and then his nurse devours.
But here, Lorenzo, the delufion lies;
That folar fhadow, as it measures life,
It life refembles too. Life speeds away
From point to point, tho' feeming to stand still.
The cunning fugitive is fwift by stealth:
Too fubtle in the movement to he seen;
Yet foon man's hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our danger, gnomons time:
As these are ufelefs when the fun is fet;
So thofe, but when more glorious Reason shines,
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