NIGHT SECOND.

ON TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP.

"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.
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 thoughts 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, though 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 thy heart quite disengaged,

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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,
(0 glorious avarice!) thought of death inspires,
As rumour'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 composition sets the prisoner 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 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
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 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:
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?
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 medicines cannot cure?
When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes.
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight,
As lands, and cities with their glittering 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-prized sports?
He pleads time's numerous 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 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;
This, the good heart's prerogative to raise
A royal tribute from the poorest hours;

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Immense revenue! every moment pays.
If nothing more than purpose in thy power;
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;

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Guard well thy thought; our thoughts are heard in heaven. On all-important time, through every age,

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
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 phrensy fly,
For rescue from the blessing 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 power ethereal, only not adored.

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 lingering moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves.
Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer
(For Nature's voice unstifled would recall),

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Drives headlong towards the precipice of death;

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Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful made:

Oh, 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 pass'd by; what then is seen,
But his broad pinions swifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghast! cry out on his career.

Leave to thy foes these errors and these ills;
To Nature just, their cause and cure explore.
Not short Heaven's bounty, boundless our expence ;
No niggard, Nature; men are prodigals.

We waste, not use our time; we breathe, not live.
Time wasted is existence, used is life.

And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd,

Wrings, and oppresses with enormous weight.
And why? since time was given for use, not waste,
Enjoin'd to fly; with tempest, tide, and stars,
To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man;

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