Pia Desideria or, Divine Addresses, In Three Books. Illustrated with XLVII. Copper-Plates. Written in Latin by Herm. Hugo. Englished by Edm. Arwaker ... The Fourth Edition, Corrected |
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 | Pia Desideria |  |
63
XIII.
Are not my Days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may bewail my self a little.
Job x. 20.
Must a few Minutes added to my Days
Be thought a favour passing Thanks or Praise?
Ages, indeed, might well deserve that Name,
And render my Ingratitude to Blame:
But, the increase of a few Days to come,
How little adds it to the slender Sum?
As well the Infant that but treads the Stage,
Is said to leave it in a good Old Age.
As well poor Insects may be said to live,
To whom their Birth-day does their Fun'ral give.
Be thought a favour passing Thanks or Praise?
Ages, indeed, might well deserve that Name,
And render my Ingratitude to Blame:
But, the increase of a few Days to come,
How little adds it to the slender Sum?
As well the Infant that but treads the Stage,
Is said to leave it in a good Old Age.
As well poor Insects may be said to live,
To whom their Birth-day does their Fun'ral give.
So fading Flow'rs their hasty Minutes count,
Whose longest Life scarce to one Day amount.
Flow'rs, in the Morning Boys, at Noon-tide Men,
At Night, with Age, feeble as Boys agen.
Thus in one short-liv'd Day they Bloom and Die,
And all the diff'rence of our Ages try.
Wou'd Time's o'er-hasty Wheels their Motion stay,
And the swift Hours not post so swift away,
The insects then might lengthen too their Song,
And the Flow'rs boast their Day had been so long.
But Time is ever hastning to be gone,
And, like a Stream, the Year glides swiftly on.
Successive Months closely each other Trace,
And meet the Sun along his Annual Race,
While short-liv'd Days, then either, march a swifter pace.
The harnest Hours are pressing forward still,
And, once gone by, are irretrievable.
“Thus envious Time loves on it self to prey,
“And still thro' its own Entrails eats its way.
It self pursues, it self it ever flies,
And on it self it ever Lives and Dies.
So wasting Lamps by their own Flames Expire,
And kindle at themselves their Fun'ral Fire.
Thus its own Course the Circling Year pursues,
Till like the Wheels on which 'tis mov'd it grows.
Whose longest Life scarce to one Day amount.
Flow'rs, in the Morning Boys, at Noon-tide Men,
At Night, with Age, feeble as Boys agen.
Thus in one short-liv'd Day they Bloom and Die,
And all the diff'rence of our Ages try.
64
And the swift Hours not post so swift away,
The insects then might lengthen too their Song,
And the Flow'rs boast their Day had been so long.
But Time is ever hastning to be gone,
And, like a Stream, the Year glides swiftly on.
Successive Months closely each other Trace,
And meet the Sun along his Annual Race,
While short-liv'd Days, then either, march a swifter pace.
The harnest Hours are pressing forward still,
And, once gone by, are irretrievable.
“Thus envious Time loves on it self to prey,
“And still thro' its own Entrails eats its way.
It self pursues, it self it ever flies,
And on it self it ever Lives and Dies.
So wasting Lamps by their own Flames Expire,
And kindle at themselves their Fun'ral Fire.
Thus its own Course the Circling Year pursues,
Till like the Wheels on which 'tis mov'd it grows.
This Truth the Ancients weightily Exprest,
Who made the Father on his Off-spring Feast:
For Time on Months and Years, its Children feeds,
And kills with Motion, what its Motion breeds.
Hours waste their Days, the Days their Months consume,
And the rapacious Months their Years Entomb.
Thus Years, Months, Days, and Hours, still keep their round,
Till all in vast Eternity are drown'd.
Who made the Father on his Off-spring Feast:
For Time on Months and Years, its Children feeds,
And kills with Motion, what its Motion breeds.
Hours waste their Days, the Days their Months consume,
And the rapacious Months their Years Entomb.
65
Till all in vast Eternity are drown'd.
Then, Lord, allow my Grief some little space,
To mourn the shortness of my hasty Race:
I wish not time for Laughter; if I did,
My Circumstances and the Place forbid.
All I desire, is time for Grief and Tears,
Let that be all th'Addition to my Years:
Which, tho' but short, yet have been full of Sin,
More than my Time was to Repent it in.
Yet if thou grant'st me some few Minutes more,
They'll make amends for my short Days before.
Come then, my cruel Hands, and without Rest
Or Pity, beat my hard, my senseless Breast!
Drop then, my Eyes, you cannot flow too fast;
While you delay, what precious Time is past?
'Tis done! my Tears have a prevailing force,
And Heav'n appeas'd, now stop their eager Course.
To mourn the shortness of my hasty Race:
I wish not time for Laughter; if I did,
My Circumstances and the Place forbid.
All I desire, is time for Grief and Tears,
Let that be all th'Addition to my Years:
Which, tho' but short, yet have been full of Sin,
More than my Time was to Repent it in.
Yet if thou grant'st me some few Minutes more,
They'll make amends for my short Days before.
Come then, my cruel Hands, and without Rest
Or Pity, beat my hard, my senseless Breast!
Drop then, my Eyes, you cannot flow too fast;
While you delay, what precious Time is past?
'Tis done! my Tears have a prevailing force,
And Heav'n appeas'd, now stop their eager Course.
When Man first sinn'd, he chang'd Eternity for Mortality, Nine hundred Years, or thereabout: But Sin increasing by degrees, Man's Life was contracted to a very short space.
Hieron. ad Paulam, Epist 12.
| Pia Desideria | |