The Patient dies while the Physician fleeps;
The Orphan pines while the Oppressor feeds:
Juftice is feasting while the Widow weeps :
Advice is sporting while Infection breeds,
Thou grant'ft no time for charitable Deeds:
Wrath, Envy, Treason, Rape, and Murder rages,
Thy heinous Hours wait on them as their Pages.

When Truth and Vertue have to do with thee,
A thousand Croffes keep them from thy Aid;
They buy thy Help, but Sin ne'er gives a Fee,
He gratis comes, and thou art well apaid,
As well to hear, as grant what he hath faid.
My Colatine would elfe have come to me,
When Tarquin did, but he was ftaid by thee.

Guilty thou art of Murder and of Theft,
Guilty of Perjury and Subornation,
Guilty of Treafon, Forgery and Shift,
Guilty of Incest that Abomination;
An Accessary by thine Inclination

To all Sins paft, and all that are to come
From the Creation to the general Doom.

Mishapen time, Copefmate of ugly Night,
Swift fubtle Poft, Carrier of grilly Care,
Eater of Youth, falfe Slave to falfe Delight,
Bafe Watch of Woes, Sin's Pack-horse, Vertue's
(Snare;

Thou nurfeft all, and murderft all that are.
O hear me then, injurious fhifting Time!
Be guilty of my Death, fince of my Crime.

Why hath thy Servant Opportunity
Betray'd the Hours thou gav'ft me to repofe?
Cancel'd my Fortunes and inchained me

IT

To

To endless Date of never-ending Woes?
Time's Office is to find the hate of Foes,
To eat up Error by Opinion bred,
Not spend the Dowry of a lawful Bed.

Time's Glory is to calm contending Kings,
To unmask Falfhood, and bring Truth to Light,
To ftamp the Seal of Time in aged things,
To wake the Morn and centinel the Night,
To wrong the Wronger till he render Right,
To ruinate proud Buildings with thy Hours,
And fear with Duft their glittering golden
(Towers

To fill with Worm-holes ftately Monuments,
To feed Oblivion with Decay of things,.
To blot old Books, and alter their Contents,
To pluck the Quills from antient Ravens Wings,
To dry the old Oak's Sap, and cherish Springs,
To fpoil Antiquities of hammer'd Steel,

And turn the giddy round of Fortune's Wheel,

To fhew the Beldame Daughters of her Daughter,
To make the Child a Man, the Man a Child,
To flay the Tyger that doth live by Slaughter,
To tame the Unicorn and Lion wild,
To mock the Subtle in themselves beguil'd;
To chear the Plowman with increaseful crops,
And waste huge Stones with little Water-drops.

Why work'st thou Mischief in thy Pilgrimage,
Unless thou could'st return to make amends?
One poor retiring Minute in an Age,

Would purchase thee a thousand thoufand Friends,
Lending him Wit that to bad Debtors lends.
O this dread Night,wouldft thou one Hour come

(back,

I could prevent this Storm and fhun this Wrack.

Thou

Thou ceafelefs Lacky to Eternity,

With fome Mifchance cross Tarquin in his Flight,
Devife Extremes beyond Extremity

To make him curfe this curfed crimeful Night:
Let ghaftly Shadows his leud Eyes affright,
And the dire Thought of his committed Evil
Shape every Bush a hideous shapeless Devil.

Disturb his hours of Reft with restlefs Trances,
Afflict him in his Bed with bedrid Groans:
Let there bechance him pitiful Mifchances,
To make him moan, but pity not his Moans:
Stone him with harden'd Hearts harder than stone,
And let mild Women to him lose their Mildness,
Wilder to him than Tygers in their Wildness.

Let him have time to tear his curled Hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have time of Time's help to despair,
Let him have time to live a loathed Slave:
Let him have time a Beggar's Orts to crave,

And time to fee one that by Alms do live,
Disdain to him difdained Scraps to give.

Let him have time to fee his Friends his Foes,
And merry Fools to mock at him refort:
Let him have time to mark how flow Time goes
In time of Sorrow, and how swift and short
His time of Folly, and his time of Sport.
And ever let his unrecalling Time
Have time to wail th'abufing of his Time.

O Time, thon Tutor both to Good and Bad, Teach me to curfe him that thou taughtft this Ill, At his own Shadow let the Thief run mad,

(Spill.

Himself, himself feek every Hour to kill;

Such wretched Hands, fuch wretched Blood fhould
For who fo base would fuch an Office have,
As flanderous Deaths-man to fo bafe a Slave?

The bafer is he, coming from a King,
To fhame his Hope with Deeds degenerate;
The mightier Man, the mightier is the thing,
That makes him honour'd, or begets him Hate:
For greatest Scandal waits on greatest State.

The Moon being clouded, prefently is mist,
But little Stars may hide them when they list.

The Crow may bathe his cole-black Wings in Mire,
And unperceiv'd fly with the Filth away;
But if the like the fnow-white Swan defire,
The stain upon his filver Down will stay.
Poor Grooms are fightless Night, Kings glorious
Gnats are unnoted wherefoe'er they fly,
But Eagles gaz'd upon with every Eye.

(Day,

Our idle Words, Servants to shallow Fools,
Unprofitable Sounds, weak Arbitrators,
Bufy your felves in skill-contending Schools,
Debate where leifure ferves with dull Debators :
To trembling Clients be you Mediators:
For me, I force not Argument a straw,
Since that my Cafe is past all help of Law.

In vain I rail at Opportunity,

At Time, at Tarquin, and unfearchful Night:
In vain I cavil with mine Infamy,

In vain I fpurn at my confirm'd Defpight:
This helpless smoke of Words doth me no right;
The Remedy indeed to do me good,

Is to let forth my foul defiled Blood.

Poor Hand, why quiverft thou at this Decree?
Honour thy felf to rid me of this Shame,
For if I die, my Honour lives in thee;
But if I live, thou liv'ft in my Defame;
Since thou couldst not defend thy Loyal Dame,
And waft afraid to scratch her wicked Foe,
Kill both thy felf and her for yielding fo.

This faid, from her betumbled Couch she starts,
To find fome defperate Inftrument of Death;
But this no Slaughter-house, no Tool imparts,
To make more vent for paffage of her Breath,
Which thronging thro her Lips fo vanifheth

As Smoke from Etna, that in Air confumes,
Or that which from discharged Cannon fumes.

In vain (quoth fhe) Hive, and feek in vain
Some happy Mean to end a hapless Life:
I fear'd by Tarquin's Fauchion to be flain,
Yet for the felf. fame Purpose seek a Knife :
But when I fear'd, I was a Loyal Wife,
So am I now: Ono, that cannot be,
Of that true Type hath Tarquin rifled me.

O that is gone, for which I fought to live,
And therefore now I need not fear to die;
To clear this Spot by Death (at least) I give
A Badg of Fame to Slaunder's Livery,
A dying Life to living Infamy,

Poor helpless help the Treasure ftoln away,
To burn the guiltless Casket where it lay.

Well, well, dear Colatine, thou shalt not know
The stained taft of violated Troth:

I will not wrong thy true Affection so,
To flatter thee with an infringed Oath,