Thou think'st it folly to be wife 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, afk 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, ftill nearer the great mark Of men and angels; virtue more divine.
Is this our duty, wisdom, glory, gain? (These heaven benign in vital union binds) And sport we like the natives of the bough, When vernal funs infpire? Amusement reigns Man's great demand: To trifle, is to live: And is it then a trifle, too, to die?
Thou fay'ft I preach, Lorenzo, 'tis confeft. What if, for once, I preach thee quite awake? Who wants amusement in the flame of battle? Is it not treafon, to the foul immortal, Her foes in arms, eternity the prize?
Will toys amufe, when medicines cannot cure? When fpirits ebb, when life's enchanting fcenes Their luftre lofe, and leffen in our fight, As lands, and cities with their glittering fpires, To the poor fhatter'd bark, by fudden storm Thrown off to fea, and foon to perish there? Will toys amufe? No: Thrones will then be toys, And earth and fkies feem duft upon the fcale. Redeem we time ?-Its lofs we dearly buy. What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd sports?
He pleads Time's numerous blanks; he loudly pleads The ftraw-like trifles on life's common ftream. From whom thofe blarks and trifles, but from thee? No blank, no trifle, nature made, or meant. Virtue, or propos'd virtue, ftill 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 bleft art of turning all to gold; This, the good heart's prerogative to raise A royal tribute from the poorest hours; Immenfe revenue! every moment pays. If nothing more than purpofe in thy power; Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed: Who does the beft his circumftance 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 'heaven.
On all important Time, through every age,
Though much, and warm, the wise have urg'd; the man Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.
"I've loft a day"-the prince who nobly cry'd Had been an emperor without his crown; Of Rome, fay, rather, lord of human race: He spoke, as if deputed by mankind.
So fhould all fpeak: So reafon fpeaks in all: From the foft whifpers of that God in man, Why fly to folly, why to phrenzy fly,
For refcue from the bleffing we poffefs? Time the fupreme !-Time is Eternity; Pregnant with all eternity can give;
Pregnant with all, that makes archangels fmile. Who murders time, he crushes in the birth A power ethereal, only not ador’d.
Ah! how unjust to nature and himself, Is thoughtless, thankless, inconfiftent man! Like children babbling nonsense in their sports, We cenfure nature for a span too short; That span too short, we tax as tedious too; Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lafh the lingering moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer (For Nature's voice unftifled would recall) Drives headlong towards the precipice of death; Death, moft our dread; death thus more dreadful made: O what a riddle of abfurdity!
Leifure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels;
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Bleft leifure is our curfe; 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 amufement mortgages our fields; Slight inconvenience! prifons hardly frown, From hateful Time if prifons fet 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 feems to creep, decrepit with his age; Behold him, when past by; what then is feen, But his broad pinions swifter than the winds? And all mankind, in contradiction strong, Rueful, aghaft! cry out on his career.
Leave to thy foes these errors, and thefe ills; To nature juft, their Caufe and Cure explore. Not fhort heaven's bounty, boundless our expence; No niggard, nature; men are prodigals.
We wafte, not use our time; we breathe, not live. Time wafted is exiftence, us'd is life.
And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd,
Wings, and oppresses with enormous weight. And why? fince Time was given for use, not wafte, Injoin'd to fly; with tempeft, tide, and stars,
To keep his fpeed, nor ever wait for man; Time's ufe 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, fplit on idleness for cafe.
Life's cares are comforts; fuch by heaven defign'd; 160 He that has none, muft make them, or be wretched. Cares are employments, and without employ
The foul is on a rack; the rack of rest, To fouls moft adverse; action all their joy.
Here then, the riddle, mark'd above, unfolds; 165 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, fhall contradict their own. Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves; Our thoughts at enmity; our bofom-broil; We push Time from us, and we wish him back Lavish of luftrums, and yet fond of life;
Life we think long, and short; Death feek, and shun : Body and foul, like peevish man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loth to part.
Oh the dark days of vanity! while here,
How taftelefs! and how terrible, when gone! Gone! they ne'er go; when pasft, they haunt us ftill; The spirit walks of every day deceas'd;
And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns. Nor death, nor life delight us. And time poffeft, both pain us,
what can pleafe? That which the Deity to please ordain'd,
Time us'd. The man who confecrates his hours 185 By vigorous effort, and an honest aim,
At once he draws the fting of life and death; He walks with Nature; and her paths are peace.
Our error's caufe and cure are feen: See next Time's Nature, Origin, Importance, Speed; And thy great Gain from urging his career.- All-fenfual man, because untouch'd, unfeen, He looks on Time as nothing. Nothing elfe Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's-Time 's a god.
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