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Lettered inside image: "25 | We thwart the DEITY; and 'tis decreed, | Who thwart his will shall contradict their own: | Hence our unnatural quarrel 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 deceased; | 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; | 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 God: | Hast thou ne'er heard of time's omnipotence? | For, or against, what wonders can he do-- | And will! to stand blank neuter he distains."; lower left: "inv & sc | WB"; lower left: "Pubd. June 27. 1796, by R. Edwards, No. 142 New Bond Street."; Lettered on verso, inside image: "26 | Not on those terms was time, heaven's stranger, sent | On his important embassy to man. | LORENZO! no: on the long-destined hour, | 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 godhead streaming through a thousand worlds; | Not on those terms, from the great days of heaven, | From old eternity's mysterious orb, | Was time cut off, and cast beneath the skies; | The skies, which watch him in his new abode, | *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, | 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? | 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;"