And whirl us (happy Riddance!) from ourselves.
Art, brainless Art! our furious Charioteer
(For Nature's Voice unftifled would recall).
Drives headlong tow'rds the Precipice of Death; Death, most our Dread; Death thus more dreadful made;
O what a Riddle of Absurdity!
Leifure is Pain; takes off our Chariot-wheels;
How heavily we drag the Load of Life!
Bleft Leisure 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 Amusement mortgages our Fields
Slight Inconvenience! Prisons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if Prifons fet us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us Relief,
We call him cruel; Years to Moments fhrink,
Ages to Years. The Telescope is turn'd.
To Man's falfe Optics (from his Folly falfe)
Time, in Advance, behind him hides his Wings,
And seems to creep, decrepit with his Age;
Behold him, when paft by; what then is feen,
But his broad Pinions fwifter than the Winds?
And all Mankind, în Contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghaft! cry out on his Career.
Leave to thy Foes these Errors, and thefe Ills;
To Nature juft, their Cause and Cure explore.
Not fhort Heav'n's Bounty, boundless our Expence ;
No Niggard, Nature; Men are Prodigals.
We wafte, not use our Time; we breathe, not live,
Time wafted is Existence; us'd is Life.
And bare Existence, Man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings, and oppreffes with enormous Weight.
And why? fince Time was giv'n for Ufe, not Wafte,
Injoin'd to fly; with Tempeft, Tide, and Stars,
To keep his Speed, nor ever wait for Man;
Time's Ufe was doom'd a Pleafure: Wafte, a Pain;
That Man might feel his Error, if unseen:
And, feeling, fly to Labour for his Cure;
Not, blund'ring, fplit on Idlenefs for Eafe.
Life's Cares are Comforts; fuch by Heav'n defign'd;
He that has none, must make them, or be wretched,
Cares are Employments; and without Employ
The Soul is on a Rack; the Rack of Reft,
To Souls most adverfe; 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, fhall contradict their own.
Hence our unnat'ral Quarrel with ourselves;
We push Time from us, and we wish Him back;
Lavish of Luftrums; and yet fond of Life;
Life we think long, and fhort; 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 Taftelefs! and how Terrible, when gone!
Gone? they ne'er go; when paft, 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 please?
That which the Deity to please ordain'd,
Time us'd. The Man who confecrates 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 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.
Thou haft ne'er heard of Time's Omnipotence;
For, or against, what Wonders can he do!
And will: To ftand blank Neuter he difdains.
Not on thofe Terms was Time (Heav'n's Stranger!) fent
On his important Embaffy to Man,
LORENZO! no: On the long-deftin'd Hour,
From everlasting Ages growing ripe,
That memorable Hour of wond'rous Birth,
When the dread Sire, on Emanation bent,
And big with Nature, rifing in his Might,
Call'd forth Creation (for then Time was born),
By Godhead ftreaming thro' a thousand Worlds;
Not on thofe Terms, from the great Days of Heav'n,
From old Eternity's inyfterious Orb,
Was Time cut off, and caft 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 num'rous Wings around him, as he flies:
Or, rather, as unequal Plumes they shape
His ample Pinions, fwift as darted Flame,
To gain his Goal, to reach his antient Reft,
And join anew Eternity his Sire;
In his Immutability to nest,
When Worlds, that count his Circles now, unhing'd,
Fate the loud Signal founding) headlong rufh
To timeless Night, and Chaos, whence they rofe.
Why fpur the Speedy? Why with Levities
New-wing thy fhort, fhort Day's too rapid Flight?
Know'ft thou, or what thou doft, or what is done?
Man flies from Time, and Time from Man; too foon
In fad Divorce this double Flight must end:
And then, where are we? where, LORENZO! then,
Thy Sports? thy Pomps?-I grant thee, in a State
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 Sifter Lilies might) if not fo wife
As Solomon, more fumptuous to the Sight!
Ye delicate! who nothing can fupport,
Yourselves most infupportable! for whom
The winter Rofe must blow, the Sun put on
A brighter Beam in Leo; filky-foft
Favonius breathe still fofter, or be chid;
And other Worlds fend Odours, Sawce, and Song,
And Robes, and Notions, fram'd in foreign Looms!
O ye LORENZOs of our Age! who deem
One Moment unamus'd, a Mifery
Not made for feeble Man! who call aloud
For ev'ry Bawble, drivel'd o'er by Sense;
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