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 appetite 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 brass, 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 Hell 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;