Young's Night Thoughts Part 4

Time wasted is existence, used is life. 150 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; Time's use was doom'd a pleasure: waste, a pain; 156 That man might feel his error, if unseen: And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure; Not, blundering, split on idleness for ease.

Life's cares are comforts; such by Heaven design'd; He that has none, must make them, or be wretched.

Cares are employments; and without employ The soul is on a rack; the rack of rest, 163 To souls most adverse; action all their joy.

Here then, the riddle, mark'd above, unfolds; Then time turns torment, when man turns a fool.

We rave, we wrestle, with great Nature's plan; We thwart the Deity; and 'tis decreed, Who thwart his will shall contradict their own.

Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves; 170 Our thoughts at enmity; our bosom-broils; We push Time from us, and we wish him back; Lavish of l.u.s.trums, and yet fond of life; Life we think long, and short; death seek, and shun; Body and soul, like peevish man and wife, United jar, and yet are loth to part.

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; 180 And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns.

Nor death, nor life delight us. If time past, And time possess'd, both pain us, what can please?

That which the Deity to please ordain'd, 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.

Our error's cause and cure are seen: see next Time's nature, origin, importance, speed; 190 And thy great gain from urging his career.-- All-sensual man, because untouch'd, unseen, He looks on time as nothing. Nothing else Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's.--Time's a G.o.d.

Hast thou ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence?

For, or against, what wonders he can do, And will? To stand blank neuter he disdains.

Not on those terms was Time (Heaven's stranger!) sent On his important emba.s.sy to man.

Lorenzo! no: on the long-destined hour, 200 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, Call'd forth creation (for then Time was born), By G.o.dhead streaming through a thousand worlds; Not on those terms, from the great days of heaven, From old Eternity's mysterious...o...b.. Was Time cut off, and cast beneath the skies; The skies, which watch him in his new abode, 210 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 220 (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? 224 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 then where are we? where, Lorenzo! then Thy sports? thy pomps?--I grant thee, in a state Not unambitious; in the ruffled shroud, Thy Parian tomb's triumphant arch beneath.

Has Death his fopperies? Then well may life 232 Put on her plume, and in her rainbow shine.

Ye well-array'd! ye lilies of our land!

Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin (As sister lilies might), if not so wise As Solomon, more sumptuous to the sight!

Ye delicate! who nothing can support, Yourselves most insupportable! for whom The winter rose must blow, the sun put on 240 A brighter beam in Leo; silky-soft Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid; And other worlds send odours, sauce, and song, And robes, and notions, framed in foreign looms!

O ye Lorenzos of our age! who deem One moment unamused, a misery Not made for feeble man! who call aloud For every bauble drivell'd o'er by sense; For rattles, and conceits of every cast, For change of follies, and relays of joy, 250 To drag your patient through the tedious length Of a short winter's day--say, sages! say, Wit's oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams!

How will you weather an eternal night, Where such expedients fail?

O treacherous Conscience! while she seems to sleep On rose and myrtle, lull'd with syren song; While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop 258 On headlong appet.i.te the slacken'd rein, And give us up to licence, unrecall'd, Unmark'd;--see, from behind her secret stand, The sly informer minutes every fault, And her dread diary with horror fills.

Not the gross act alone employs her pen; She reconnoitres fancy's airy band, A watchful foe! the formidable spy, Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp: Our dawning purposes of heart explores, And steals our embryos of iniquity.

As all-rapacious usurers conceal 270 Their doomsday-book from all-consuming heirs; Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats Us spendthrifts of inestimable time; Unnoted, notes each moment misapplied; In leaves more durable than leaves of bra.s.s, Writes our whole history; which Death shall read In every pale delinquent's private ear; And Judgment publish; publish to more worlds Than this; and endless age in groans resound.

Lorenzo, such that sleeper in thy breast! 280 Such is her slumber; and her vengeance such For slighted counsel; such thy future peace!

And think'st thou still thou canst be wise too soon?

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. Oh, what heaps of slain Cry out for vengeance on us! Time destroy'd 290 Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt.

Time flies, Death urges, knells call, Heaven invites, 292 h.e.l.l threatens: all exerts; in effort, all; More than creation labours!--labours more?

And is there in creation what, amidst This tumult universal, wing'd despatch, And ardent energy, supinely yawns?-- Man sleeps; and man alone; and man, whose fate, Fate irreversible, entire, extreme, Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulf 300 A moment trembles; drops! and man, for whom All else is in alarm! man, the sole cause Of this surrounding storm! and yet he sleeps, As the storm rock'd to rest.--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-import The period past, re-give the given hour.

Lorenzo, more than miracles we want; 310 Lorenzo--O for yesterdays to come!

Such is the language of the man awake; His ardour such, for what oppresses thee.

And is his ardour vain, Lorenzo? No; That more than miracle the G.o.ds indulge; To-day is yesterday return'd; return'd Full power'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn, And reinstate us on the rock of peace.

Let it not share its predecessor's fate; Nor, like its elder sisters, die a fool. 320 Shall it evaporate in fume? fly off Fuliginous, and stain us deeper still?

Shall we be poorer for the plenty pour'd?

More wretched for the clemencies of Heaven?

Where shall I find him? Angels! tell me where.

You know him: he is near you: point him out: 326 Shall I see glories beaming from his brow?

Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers?

Your golden wings, now hovering o'er him, shed Protection; now, are waving in applause To that bless'd son of foresight! lord of fate!

That awful independent on to-morrow!

Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past; 333 Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile; Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly; That common but opprobrious lot! past hours, If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight, If folly bounds our prospect by the grave, All feeling of futurity benumb'd; All G.o.d-like pa.s.sion for eternals quench'd; 340 All relish of realities expired; Renounced all correspondence with the skies; Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar; p.r.o.ne to the centre; crawling in the dust; Dismounted every great and glorious aim; Embruted every faculty divine; Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world.

The world, that gulf of souls, immortal souls, Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire 350 To reach the distant skies, and triumph there On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters changed, Though we from earth; ethereal, they that fell.

Such veneration due, O man, to man.

Who venerate themselves, the world despise.

For what, gay friend! is this escutcheon'd world, Which hangs out death in one eternal night?

A night, that glooms us in the noontide ray, And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud.

Life's little stage is a small eminence, 360 Inch-high the grave above; that home of man, Where dwells the mult.i.tude: we gaze around; We read their monuments; we sigh; and while We sigh, we sink; and are what we deplored; Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot!

Is Death at distance? No: he has been on thee; And given sure earnest of his final blow.

These hours that lately smiled, where are they now?

Pallid to thought, and ghastly! drown'd, all drown'd In that great deep, which nothing disembogues! 370 And, dying, they bequeathed thee small renown.

The rest are on the wing: how fleet their flight!

Already has the fatal train took fire; A moment, and the world's blown up to thee; The sun is darkness, and the stars are dust.

'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours; And ask them, what report they bore to heaven; And how they might have borne more welcome news.

Their answers form what men experience call; If Wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst foe. 380 "Oh, reconcile them!" kind Experience cries; "There's nothing here, but what as nothing weighs; The more our joy, the more we know it vain; And by success are tutor'd to despair."

Nor is it only thus, but must be so.

Who knows not this, though grey, is still a child.

Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire, Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore.

Art thou so moor'd thou canst not disengage, Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future scenes? 390 Since, by life's pa.s.sing breath, blown up from earth, Light as the summer's dust, we take in air A moment's giddy flight, and fall again; Join the dull ma.s.s, increase the trodden soil, 394 And sleep, till earth herself shall be no more; Since then (as emmets, their small world o'erthrown) We, sore-amazed, from out earth's ruins crawl, And rise to fate extreme of foul or fair, As man's own choice (controller of the skies!) As man's despotic will, perhaps one hour (O how omnipotent is time!) decrees; Should not each warning give a strong alarm?

Warning, far less than that of bosom torn 403 From bosom, bleeding o'er the sacred dead!

Should not each dial strike us as we pa.s.s, Portentous, as the written wall, which struck, O'er midnight bowls, the proud a.s.syrian pale, Erewhile high-flush'd, with insolence, and wine?

Like that, the dial speaks; and points to thee, Lorenzo! loth to break thy banquet up: 410 "O man, thy kingdom is departing from thee; And, while it lasts, is emptier than my shade."

Its silent language such: nor need'st thou call Thy Magi, to decipher what it means.

Know, like the Median, fate is in thy walls: Dost ask, How? Whence? Belshazzar-like, amazed?

Man's make encloses the sure seeds of death; Life feeds the murderer: ingrate! he thrives On her own meal, and then his nurse devours.

But, here, Lorenzo, the delusion lies; 420 That solar shadow, as it measures life, It life resembles too: life speeds away From point to point, though seeming to stand still.

The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth: Too subtle is the movement to be seen; Yet soon man's hour is up, and we are gone.

Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time: As these are useless when the sun is set: 423 So those, but when more glorious reason shines.

Reason should judge in all; in reason's eye, That sedentary shadow travels hard.

But such our gravitation to the wrong, So p.r.o.ne our hearts to whisper what we wish, 'Tis later with the wise than he's aware: A Wilmington goes slower than the sun: And all mankind mistake their time of day; Even age itself. Fresh hopes are hourly sown In furrow'd brows. To gentle life's descent We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain.

We take fair days in winter, for the spring; 440 And turn our blessings into bane. Since oft Man must compute that age he cannot feel, He scarce believes he's older for his years.

Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in store One disappointment sure, to crown the rest; The disappointment of a promised hour.

On this, or similar, Philander! thou, Whose mind was moral, as the preacher's tongue; And strong, to wield all science, worth the name; How often we talk'd down the summer's sun, 450 And cool'd our pa.s.sions by the breezy stream!

How often thaw'd and shorten'd winter's eve, By conflict kind, that struck out latent truth, Best found, so sought; to the recluse more coy!

Thoughts disentangle pa.s.sing o'er the lip; Clean runs the thread; if not, 'tis thrown away, Or kept to tie up nonsense for a song; Song, fashionably fruitless; such as stains The fancy, and unhallow'd pa.s.sion fires; Chiming her saints to Cytherea's[8] fane. 460 Know'st thou, Lorenzo! what a friend contains? 461 As bees mix'd nectar draw from fragrant flowers, So men from friendship, wisdom and delight; Twins tied by Nature, if they part, they die.

Hast thou no friend to set thy mind abroach?

Good sense will stagnate. Thoughts shut up, want air, And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.

Had thought been all, sweet speech had been denied; Speech, thought's ca.n.a.l! speech, thought's criterion too!

Thought in the mine, may come forth gold, or dross; When coin'd in words, we know its real worth. 471 If sterling, store it for thy future use; 'Twill buy thee benefit; perhaps, renown.

Thought, too, deliver'd, is the more possess'd; Teaching, we learn; and, giving, we retain The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.

Speech ventilates our intellectual fire; Speech burnishes our mental magazine; Brightens, for ornament; and whets, for use.

What numbers, sheathed in erudition, lie, 480 Plunged to the hilts in venerable tomes, And rusted in; who might have borne an edge, And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech; If born bless'd heirs of half their mother's tongue!

'Tis thought's exchange, which, like th' alternate push Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned sc.u.m, And defecates the student's standing pool.

In contemplation is his proud resource?

'Tis poor, as proud, by converse unsustain'd.

Rude thought runs wild in contemplation's field; 490 Converse, the menage, breaks it to the bit Of due restraint; and emulation's spur Gives graceful energy, by rivals awed.

'Tis converse qualifies for solitude; As exercise, for salutary rest. 495 By that untutor'd, contemplation raves; And Nature's fool, by wisdom is undone.

Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines, And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive, What is she, but the means of happiness?

That un.o.btain'd, than folly more a fool; A melancholy fool, without her bells.

Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives 503 The precious end, which makes our wisdom wise.

Nature, in zeal for human amity, Denies, or damps, an undivided joy.

Joy is an import; joy is an exchange; Joy flies monopolists: it calls for two; Rich fruit! heaven-planted! never pluck'd by one.

Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give 510 To social man true relish of himself.

Full on ourselves, descending in a line, Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight: Delight intense, is taken by rebound; Reverberated pleasures fire the breast.