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From real life: but little more remote
Is he, not yet a candidate for light,
The future embryo, slumb'ring in his sire.
Embryos we must be till we burst the shell,
Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,
The life of gods, oh transport! and of man.
Yet man, fool man! here buries all his
thoughts;

Inters celestial hopes without one sigh.
Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the

moon,

Here pinions all his wishes; winged by heaven

To fly at infinite: and reach it there
Where seraphs gather immortality,

On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clust'ring glow,
In his full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where time, and pain, and chance, and death
expire!

And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptured or alarmed,
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

Edward Young.-Born 1681, Died 1765.

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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 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 ling'ring moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance) from our.
selves.

Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,

And seems to creep, decrepit with his age. Behold him when passed 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.

We waste, not use our time; we breathe, not live;

Time wasted is existence; used, is life:
And bare existence man, to live ordained,
Wrings and oppresses with enormous weight.
And why? since time was given for use, not
waste,

Enjoined to fly, with tempest, tide, and stars,
To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man.
Time's use was doomed a pleasure, waste a

pain,

That man might feel his error if unseen, And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure; Not blundering, split on idleness for ease.

We push time from us, and we wish him back;

Life we think long and short; death seek and shun.

Oh the dark days of vanity! while

Here, how tasteless! and how terrible when gone!

Gone? they ne'er go; when past, they haunt us still :

The spirit walks of every day deceased,
And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
Nor death nor life delight us. If time past,
And time possessed, both pain us, what can
please?

That which the Deity to please ordained, Time used. The man who consecrates his hours

By vigorous effort, and an honest aim,

At once he draws the sting of life and death: He walks with nature, and her paths are peace.

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On his important embassy to man.
Lorenzo no: on the long destined hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of wondrous birth,
When the Dread Sire, on emanation bent,
And big with nature, rising in his might,
Called forth creation (for then time was
born)

By Godhead streaming through a thousand worlds;

Not on those terms, from the great days of heaven,

From old eternity's mysterious orb

Was time cut off, and cast 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 numerous wings, around him, as he flies;

Or rather, as unequal plumes, they shape
His ample pinions, swift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his ancient rest,
And join anew eternity, his sire:
In his immutability to nest,

When worlds that count his circles now, unhinged,

(Fate the loud signal sounding) headlong rush

To timeless night and chaos, whence they

rose.

But why on time so lavish is my song: On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school

To teach her sons herself. Each night we die

Each morn are born anew; each day a life; And shall we kill each day? If trifling kills, Sure vice must butcher. O what heaps of slain

Cry out for vengeance on us! time destroyed Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt. Throw years away?

Throw empires, and be blameless: moments seize ;

Heaven's on their wing: a moment we may wish,

When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand still,

Bid him drive back his car and re-impart
The period past, re-give the given hour.
Lorenzo more than miracles we want.
Lorenzo! O for yesterdays to come.

Edward Young.-Born 1681, Died 1765.

858.-PROCRASTINATION.

Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born:
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel, and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least their own; their future selves
applaud;

How excellent that life they ne'er will lead!
Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's

vails;

That lodged in Fate's to wisdom they

consign;

The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.

'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,

And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage. When young, indeed,

In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.
And why?
because he thinks himself

immortal.

All men think all men mortal but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of

fate

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More we perceive by dint of thought alone;
The rich must labour to possess their own,
To feel their great abundance, and request
Their humble friends to help them to be
blest;

To see their treasure, hear their glory told,
And aid the wretched impotence of gold.

$59. THE EMPTINESS OF RICHES. Can gold calm passion, or make reason shine? dig peace or wisdom from the mine? Wisdom to gold prefer, for 'tis much less To make our fortune than our happiness : happiness which great ones often see, and wonder, in a low degree, The poor are only

That

With

rage

'Themselves unbless'd.

poor.

But what are they who droop amid their

store?

But some, great souls! and touch'd with warmth divine,

Give gold a price, and teach its beams to shine;

All hoarded treasures they repute a load,
Nor think their wealth their own, till well
bestow'd.

Grand reservoirs of public happiness,
Through secret streams diffusively they bless,
And, while their bounties glide, conceal'd
from view,

Relieve our wants, and spare our blushes too.

Nothing is meaner than a wretch of state;
The happy only are the truly great.
Peasants enjoy like appetites with kings,
And those best satisfied with cheapest things.
Could both our Indies buy but one new sense,
Our envy would be due to large expense;
Since not, those pomps which to the great

belong,

Are but poor arts to mark them from the

throng.

See how they beg an alms of Flattery:
They languish! oh, support them with a lie!
A decent competence we fully taste;

Edward Young.-Born 1681, Died 1765.

860.-THE LOVE OF PRAISE. What will not men attempt for sacred praise!

It strikes our sense, and gives a constant

feast;

The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art, Reigns, more or less, and glows, in every

heart:

The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.
O'er globes, and sceptres, now on thrones it
swells;

Now trims the midnight lamp in college cells; 'Tis Tory, Whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads,

Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades.

Here, to Steele's humour makes a bold pretence;

There, bolder, aims at Pulteney's eloquence.
It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head,
And heaps the plain with mountains of the
dead:

Nor ends with life; but nods in sable plumes,
Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs.

Edward Young.-Born 1681, Died 1765.

861.-THE ASTRONOMICAL LADY. Some nymphs prefer astronomy to love; Elope from mortal man, and range above. The fair philosopher to Rowley flies, Where in a box the whole creation lies: She sees the planets in their turns advance, And scorns, Poitier, thy sublunary dance! Of Desaguliers she bespeaks fresh air; And Whiston has engagements with the fair. What vain experiments Sophronia tries! 'Tis not in air-pumps the gay colonel dies.

But though to-day this rage of science reigns,
(O fickle sex) soon end her learned pains.
Lo Pug from Jupiter her heart has got,
Turns out the stars, and Newton is a sot.

Edward Young.-Born 1681, Died 1765.

A lady? pardon my mistaken pen,
A shameless woman is the worst of men.
Edward Young.-Born 1681, Died 1765.

862. THE LANGUID LADY.

The languid lady next appears in state,
Who was not born to carry her own weight;
She lolls, reels, staggers, till some foreign aid
To her own stature lifts the feeble maid.
Then, if ordain'd to so severe a doom,

She, by just stages, journeys round the

room:

But, knowing her own weakness, she despairs
To scale the Alps-that is, ascend the stairs.
My fan! let others say, who laugh at toil;
Fan! hood! glove! scarf! is her laconic
style;

And that is spoke with such a dying fall,
That Betty rather sees, than hears, the call:
The motion of her lips, and meaning eye,
Piece out th' idea her faint words deny.
O listen with attention most profound!
Her voice is but the shadow of a sound.
And help, oh help! her spirits are so dead,
One hand scarce lifts the other to her head.
If there a stubborn pin it triumphs o'er,
She pants! she sinks away! and is no more.
Let the robust and the gigantic carve,

Life is not worth so much, she'd rather starve:

But chew she must herself! ah cruel fate!
That Rosalinda can't by proxy eat.

Edward Young.-Born 1681, Died 1765.

863.-THE SWEARER.

Thalestris triumphs in a manly mien ;
Loud is her accent, and her phrase obscene.
In fair and open dealing where's the shame ?
What nature dares to give, she dares to

name.

This honest fellow is sincere and plain,
And justly gives the jealous husband pain
(Vain is the task to petticoats assign'd,
If wanton language shows a naked mind.)
And now and then, to grace her eloquence,
An oath supplies the vacancies of sense.
Hark! the shrill notes transpierce the yielding
air,

And teach the neighbouring echoes how to

swear.

By Jove is faint, and for the simple swain;
She on the Christian system is profane.
But though the volley rattles in your ear,
Believe her dress, she's not a grenadier.
If thunder's awful, how much more our dread,
When Jove deputes a lady in his stead?

864.-SHOWERS IN SPRING.

The north-east spends his rage; he now, shut up

Within his iron cave, the effusive south Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven

Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.

At first, a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining either, but by swift degrees,
In heaps on heaps the doubled vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep,
Sits on the horizon round, a settled gloom;
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope, of every joy,
The wish of nature. Gradual sinks the
breeze

Into a perfect calm, that not a breath
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods diffused
In glassy breadth, seem, through delusive
lapse,

Forgetful of their course. "Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye
The falling verdure. Hushed in short sus-

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With pious toil fulfill'd, the callow young,

Warm'd and expanded into perfect life,

Amid the neighbouring bush they silent drop, And whirring thence, as if alarm'd, deceive The unfeeling schoolboy. Hence around the head

Of wandering swain the white-winged plover wheels

Her sounding flight, and then directly on,

In long excursion, skims the level lawn

To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck hence

O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless

waste

The heath-hen flutters: pious fraud! to lead The hot-pursuing spaniel far astray.

James Thomson.-Born 1700, Died 1748.

866.-DOMESTIC HAPPINESS.

But happy they! the happiest of their kind!

Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings

blend.

'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love;
Where friendship full exerts her softest

power,

Perfect esteem, enliven'd by desire
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,

With boundless confidence: for nought but love

Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent

Their brittle bondage break, and come to To bless himself, from sordid parents buys

light;

A helpless family! demanding food
With constant clamour: O what passions

then,

What melting sentiments of kindly care, On the new parent seize! away they fly Affectionate, and, undesiring, bear The most delicious morsel to their young, Which, equally distributed, again The search begins. Even so a gentle pair, By fortune sunk, but form'd of generous

mould,

And charm'd with cares beyond the vulgar

breast,

In some lone cot amid the distant woods,

The loathing virgin, in eternal care,

Well merited, consume his nights and days;
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel;
Let Eastern tyrants, from the light of Heaven
Seclude their bosom-slaves, meanly possess'd
Of a mere, lifeless, violated form:
While those whom love cements in holy
faith,

And equal transport, free as Nature live,
Disdaining fear. What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all!
Who in each other clasp whatever fair

High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish; 41

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