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On Time, Death, Friendship.
21
He looks on time as nothing. Nothing else
Is truly man's; 'tis Fortune's.—Time's a God,
Hast thou ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence?
For, or against, what wonders can he do!
And will: to stand blank neuter he disdains.
Not on those terms was Time (heav'n's stranger!) sent
On his important embassy to man.
Lorenzo! no: on the long-destin'd hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of of wondrous birth,
When the dread Sire, on emanation bent,
And big with nature, rising in his might,
Call'd forth creation (for then Time was born),
By Godhead streaming thro' 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 num'rous wings around him, as he flies:
Or, rather, as unequal plum [...]s they shape
His ample pinions, swift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his antient rest,
And join anew Eternity his [...]ire;
In his immutability to nest,
When worlds, that count his circles now, unhing'd,
(Fate the loud signal sounding) headlong rush
To timeless night, and chaos, whence they rose.
Why spur the speedy? why with levities
New-wing thy short, short day's too rapid flight?
Know'st thou, or what thou dost, or what is done?
Man flies from Time, and Time from man: too soon
In sad divorce this double flight must end:
Is truly man's; 'tis Fortune's.—Time's a God,
Hast thou ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence?
For, or against, what wonders can he do!
And will: to stand blank neuter he disdains.
Not on those terms was Time (heav'n's stranger!) sent
On his important embassy to man.
Lorenzo! no: on the long-destin'd hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of of wondrous birth,
When the dread Sire, on emanation bent,
And big with nature, rising in his might,
Call'd forth creation (for then Time was born),
By Godhead streaming thro' 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 num'rous wings around him, as he flies:
Or, rather, as unequal plum [...]s they shape
His ample pinions, swift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his antient rest,
And join anew Eternity his [...]ire;
In his immutability to nest,
When worlds, that count his circles now, unhing'd,
(Fate the loud signal sounding) headlong rush
To timeless night, and chaos, whence they rose.
Why spur the speedy? why with levities
New-wing thy short, short day's too rapid flight?
Know'st thou, or what thou dost, or what is done?
Man flies from Time, and Time from man: too soon
In sad divorce this double flight must end:
And
