Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay. Yet be not vain; there are who thine excel, 445 And charm through distant ages. Wrapp'd in shade, Prisoner of darkness! to the silent hours How often I repeat their rage divine, To lull my griefs, and steal my heart from woe! 450 Or, Milton! thee; ah, could I reach your strain 455 460 RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF WILMINGTON. WHEN the cock crew, he wept,'-smote by that eye Which looks on me, on all; that Power who bids This midnight sentinel, with clarion shrill, Emblem of that which shall awake the dead, Rouse souls from slumber, into thoughts of Heaven. 5 Shall I too weep? where then is fortitude? And fortitude abandon'd, where is man? 10 I know the terms on which he sees the light: growth Of dear Philander's dust. He thus, though dead, 15 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 20 Where is that thirst, that avarice of Time, 25 (0 glorious avarice!) thought of death inspires, As rumour'd robberies endear our gold? O Time! than gold more sacred; more a load 30 35 Fast binds, and vengeance claims the full arrear That time is mine, O Mead! to thee I owe; 40 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. 45 For Esculapian, but for moral 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 50 And what it's worth, ask deathbeds; 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. 55 (These Heaven 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: 60 And is it then a trifle, too, to die? Thou say'st I preach, Lorenzo! 'tis confess'd What if, for once, I preach thee quite awake? 10 70 Will toys amuse when medicines cannot cure? 75 No blank, no trifle Nature made or meant. 80 Virtue, or purposed 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 bless'd art of turning all to gold; 85 90 '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, 95 Though much, and warm, the wise have urged, the man Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour. 'I've lost a day,'-the prince who nobly cried, Ilad been an emperor without his crown. 100 Of Rome? say, rather, lord of human race : So should all speak: so reason speaks in all 105 For rescue from the blessings we possess? Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile. Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth 110 Ah! how unjust to Nature and himself Like children babbling nonsense in their sports We censure Nature for a span too short; 115 That span too short we tax as tedious too; Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lash the lingering moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer, 120 (For Nature's voice unstifled would recal) Drives headlong towards the precipice of death; Death most our dread; death thus more dreadful made O what a riddle of absurdity! 125 Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels: 130 135 We call him cruel; years to moments shrink, |