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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.

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Redeem we time? Its loss we dearly buy. What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd 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 propos'd 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 blest art of turning all to gold; This, the good heart's prerogative to raise A royal tribute from the poorest hours; 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; Guard well thy thought; our thoughts are heard in heaven. On all important time, through every age,

Though much, and warm, the wise have urg'd; the man Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.

"I've lost a day" the prince who nobly cry'd,

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 phrenzy fly,
For rescue from the blessing we possess?

1

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 ador'd.

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),

Drives headlong towards the precipice of death;.

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Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful made;
O 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 past 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.

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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.

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382

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

And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings, and oppresses with enormous weight.
And why? since time was giv'n 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;
That man might feel his error, if unseen:
And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure;
Not, blund'ring, 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,
To souls most adverse; action all their joy.

Here, then, the riddle, mark'd above, unfolds;
The 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;
Our thoughts at enmity; our bosom -broil;
We push time from us, and we wish him back;

Lavish of lustrums, 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 deceas'd;

If time past,

And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
Nor death, nor life, delight us.
And time possest, both pain us, what can please?
That which the Deity to please ordain'd,

Time us'd. 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.

383

MAL LE T.

Biographische und literarische Nachrichten von diesem Manne enthält der erste Theil dieses Handbuchs, S. 211. Man findet seine Gedichte bei Johnson im 53sten, bei Bell im 101sten und bei Anderson im gten Bande. Johnson und Anderson haben auch sein Leben erzählt. i

C

1) WILLIAM AND MARGARET.

'T

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was at the silent, solemn hour,
When night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.
Her face was like an April-morn,
Clad in a wintery cloud;
And clay-cold, was her lily hand,
That held her sable shroud."

So shall the fairest face appear,

When youth and years are flown:
Such is the robe that kings must wear,
When death has reft their crown.

Her bloom was like the springing flower,
That sips the silver-dewal
The rose was budded in her cheek,

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Just opening to the view. b..

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But love had, like the canker-worm, 5uro )
Consum'd her early prime:

The rose grew pale, and left her cheek;

She dy'd before her time.

Awake! she cry'd, thy true-love calls,

Come from her midnight-grave;'

Now let thy pity hear the maid,; 5.
Thy love refus'd to save!

This is the dumb and dreary hour,

When injur'd ghosts complain;

When yawning graves give up their dead,
To haunt the faithless: swain.

Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,
Thy pledge and broken oath;
And give me back my maiden - vow,
my troth!

And give me back

Why did you promise love to me,

And not that promise keep?

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Why did you swear, my eyes were bright, Yet leave those eyes to weep?

How could you say, my face was fair,

And yet that face forsake?

How could you win my virgin- heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?

Why did you say, my lip was sweet,
And made the scarlet pale?"
And why did I, young witless maid!
Believe the flattering tale?,

That face, alas! no more is fair,
Those lips no longer red:

Dark are my eyes, now clos'd in death,
And every charm is fled.

The hungry worm my sister is;

This winding-sheet I wear:

And cold and weary lasts our night,

Till that last morn appear.

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But, hark! the 'cock has warn'd me hence; A long and late adieu!"

Come, see, false man, how low she lies,

Who dy'd for love of you.

The lark sung loud; the morning smil'd,
With beams of rosy red':

Pale William quak'd in every limb,

And raving left his bed,

He hy'd him to the fatal place

Where Margaret's body lay;

And stretch'd him on the green-grass turf, That wrapp'd her, breathless, clay,

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