BE wise to-day: 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd 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 Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread.

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close, where, past the shaft, no trace is found.
As from the wing, no scar the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;-
So dies in human hearts the thought of death,
E'en with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
-YOUNG.

home:

Imagination's airy wing repress :

Lock up thy senses;-let no passions stir ;-
Wake all to Reason-let her reign alone;
Then, in thy soul's deep silence, and the depth
Of Nature's silence, midnight, thus inquire:

What am I and from whence? I nothing know
But that I am; and, since I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought still had been: Eternal there must be-
But what eternal? Why not human race,
And Adam's ancestors without an end?—
That's hard to be conceived; since ev'ry link
Of that long chain'd succession is so frail:
Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rise;
I'm still quite out at sea; nor see the shore.
Whence earth, and these bright orbs?-Eternal too?
Grant matter was eternal: still these orbs
Would want some other Father-much design
Is seen in all their motions, all their makes.

That can't be from themselves-or man; that art
Man scarce can comprehend could man bestow?
And nothing greater yet allow'd than man.
Who motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?
Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? Then each atom
Asserting its indisputable right

To dance, would form a universe of dust.
Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms
And boundless flights, from shapeless and reposed?
Has matter more than motion? Has it thought,
Judgement, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it framed such laws,
Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal?—
If art to form, and counsel to conduct,
And that with greater far than human skill,
Reside not in each block;-a GODHEAD reigns:-
And, if a GOD there is, that God how great!

-YOUNG.