The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel like thee,
And call the stars to listen: ev'ry star
Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay..
Yet be not vain: there are, who thine excel,
And charm thro' distant ages: wrapt in shade,
Pris'ner of darkness! to the silent hours,
How often I repeat their rage divine
To lull my griefs, and steal my heart from woe!
I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire.
Dark, tho' not blind, like thee, Mæonides!
Or, Milton! thee; ah! could I reach your strain!
Or his, who made Mæonides our own.
Man too he sung: immortal man I sing.
Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life:
What now, but immortality, can please?
O had he press'd his theme, pursu'd the track,
Which opens out of darkness into day!
O had he mounted on his wings of fire,
Soar'd, where I sink, and sung immortal man!
How had it blest mankind, and rescu'd me!
TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP.
TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF WILMINGTON.
"WHEN the cock crew, he wept"-smote by
Which looks on me, on all: that pow'r, who bids
This midnight centinel, with clarion shrill,
(Emblem of that which shall awake the dead,)
Rouse souls from slumber into tho'ts of heav'n.
Shall I too weep? where then is fortitude?
And, fortitude abandon'd, where is man?
I know the terms on which he sees the light;
He that is born, is listed; life is war;
Eternal war with woe. Who bears it best,
Deserves it least.-On other themes I'll dwell.
Lorenzo! let me turn my tho❜ts on thee,
And thine, on themes may profit; profit there,
Where most thy need. Themes, too, the genuine.
growth
Of dear Philander's dust. He, thus, tho' dead,
May still befriend-What themes? Time's wondrous
price,
Death, friendship, and Philander's final scene.
So could I touch these themes, as might obtain Thine ear, nor leave thine heart quite disengag'd, The good deed would delight me; half-impress
On my dark cloud an Iris; and from grief
Call glory-Dost thou mourn Philander's fate?
I know thou say'st it: says thy life the same?
He mourns the dead, who lives as they desire.
Where is that thrift, that avarice of TIME,
(O glorious avarice!) thought of death inspires,
As rumor'd robberies endear our gold?
O time! than gold more sacred: more a load
Than lead, to fools; and fools reputed wise.
What moment granted man without account?
What years are squander'd, wisdom's debt unpaid ?
Our wealth in days all due to that discharge.
Haste, haste, he lies in wait, he's at the door,
Insidious death! should his strong hand arrest,
No compensation sets the pris'ner free.
Eternity's inexorable chain
Fast binds; and vengeance claims the full arrear.
How late I shudder'd on the brink! how late
Life call'd for her last refuge in despair!
That time is mine, O Mead! to thee I owe;
Fain would I pay thee with eternity.
But ill my genius answers my desire:
My sickly song is mortal, past thy cure.
Accept the will; that dies not with my strain.
For what calls thy disease, Lorenzo ? Not
For Esculapian, but for mortal aid.
Thou think'st it folly to be wise 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, ask 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, still nearer the great mark
Of men and angels; virtue more divine.
Is this our duty, wisdom, glory, gain?
(These heav'n benign in vital union binds)
And sport we like the natives of the bough,
When vernal suns inspire? Amusement reigns
Man's great demand: to trifle is to live;
And is it then a trifle, too, to die?
Thou say'st I preach, Lorenzo! 'tis confest. What if, for once, I preach thee quite awake? Who wants amusement in the flame of battle? Is it not treason to the soul immortal,
Her foes in arms, eternity the prize?
Will toys amuse, when med'cines cannot cure?
When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight,
As lands and cities with their glitt'ring spires
To the poor shatter'd bark, by sudden storm
Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there;
Will toys amuse? no, thrones will then be toys,
And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale
Redeem we time?-Its loss we dearly buy.
What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd sports?
He pleads time's num'rous blanks; he loudly pleads
The straw-like trifles on life's common stream.
From whom those blanks and trifles, but from thee?
No blank, no trifle, nature made or meant.
Virtue, or purpos'd virtue, still 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 blest art of turning all to gold:
This, the good heart's prerogative to raise
A royal tribute from the poorest hours;
Immense revenue! ev'ry moment pays.
If nothing more than purpose in thy pow'r;
Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed:
Who does the best his circumstance 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
heav'n.
On all-important time, through ev'ry age,
Tho' much, and warm, the wise have urg'd; the man Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.
"I've lost a day"-The prince who nobly cry'd,
Had been an emperor without his crown;
Of Rome? say, rather, lord of human race:
He spoke, as if deputed by mankind.
So should all speak: so reason speaks in all;
From the soft whispers of that god in man,
Why fly to folly, why to frenzy fly,
For rescue from the blessings we possess?
Time, the supreme!-Time is eternity;
Pregnant with all eternity can give;
Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile.
Who murders time, he crushes in the birth
A pow'r ethereal, only not ador'd.
Ah! how unjust to nature, and himself,
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
Like children babbling nonsense in their sports,
We censure nature for a span too short;
That span too short, we tax as tedious too;
Torture invention, all expedients tire,
To lash the ling'ring moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves.
Art, brainless art! our furious charioteer,
(For nature's voice unstifled would recal)
Drives headlong tow'rds the precipice of death:
Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful made;
O what a riddle of absurdity!
Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels;
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse; 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 prisons set 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 seems to creep decrepit with his age;
Behold him, when past by; what then is seen,
Pot his broad pinions swifter than the winds?
all mankind, in contradiction strong,
aghast! cry out on his career.
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