Charles Cotton: Verses about Time

WHEN, Coelia, must my old day set,
   And my young morning rise
In beams of joy so bright as yet
   Ne'er bless'd a lover's eyes?
My state is more advanced than when
   I first attempted thee:
I sued to be a servant then,
   But now to be made free.

I've served my time faithful and true,
   Expecting to be placed
In happy freedom, as my due,
   To all the joys thou hast:
Ill husbandry in love is such
   A scandal to love's power,
We ought not to misspend so much
   As one poor short-lived hour.

Yet think not, sweet! I'm weary grown,
   That I pretend such haste;
Since none to surfeit e'er was known
   Before he had a taste:
My infant love could humbly wait
   When, young, it scarce knew how
To plead; but grown to man's estate,
   He is impatient now.

WHY, let is run! who bids it stay?
Let us the while be merry;
Time there in water creeps away,
With us it posts in sherry.
Time not employ'd's empty sound,
Nor did kind Heaven lend it,
But that the glass should quick go round,
And men in pleasure spend it.
Then set thy foot, brave boy, to mine,
Ply quick to cure our thinking;
An hour-glass in an hour of wine
Would be but lazy drinking.
The man that snores the hour-glass out
Is truly a time-waster,
But we, who troll this glass about,
Make him to post it faster.
Yet though he flies so fast, some think,
'Tis well known to the sages,
He'll not refuse to stay and drink,
And yet perform his stages.
Time waits us whilst we crown the hearth,
And dotes on ruby faces,
And knows that this carrier of mirth
Will help to mend our paces:
He stays with him that loves good time,
And never does refuse it,
And only runs away from him
That knows not how to use it.
He only steals by without noise
From those in grief that waste it,
But lives with the mad roaring boys
That husband it, and taste it.
The moralist perhaps may prate
Of virtue from his reading,
'Tis all but stale and foisted chat
To men of better breeding.
Time, to define it, is the space
That men enjoy their being;
'Tis not the hour, but drinking glass,
Makes time and life agreeing.
He wisely does oblige his fate
Does cheerfully obey it,
And is of fops the greatest that
By temp'rance thinks to stay it.
Come, ply the glass then quick about,
To titillate the gullet,
Sobriety's no charm, I doubt,
Against a cannon-bullet.

THE cock has crow'd an hour ago,
'Tis time we now dull sleep forego;
Tir'd Nature is by sleep redress'd,
And Labour's overcome by rest.
We have out-done the work of Night,
'Tis time we rise t'attend the Light,
And e'er he shall his beams display,
To plot new bus'ness for the Day.
None but the slothful, or unsound,
Are by the Sun in feathers found,
Nor, without rising with the Sun,
Can the world's bus'ness e'er be done.
Hark! Hark! the watchful Chanticler
Tells us the Day's bright harbinger
Peeps o'er the eastern hills, to awe
And warm night's sov'reign to withdraw.
The morning curtains now are drawn,
And now appears the blushing dawn;
Aurora has her roses shed,
To strew the way Sol's steeds must tread.
Xanthus and Aethon harness'd are,
To roll away the burning car,
And, snorting flame, impatient bear
The dressing of the charioteer.
The sable cheeks of sullen Night
Are streak'd with rosy streams of light,
Whilst she retires away in fear,
To shade the other hemisphere.
The merry lark now takes her wings,
And long'd-for Day's loud welcome sings,
Mounting her body out of sight,
As if she meant to meet the Light.
Now doors and windows are unbarr'd,
Each-where are cheerful voices heard,
And round about 'Good-morrows' fly,
As if Day taught Humanity.
The chimnies now to smoke begin,
And the old wife sits down to spin,
Whilst Kate, taking her pail, does trip
Mull's swoll'n and straddl'ing paps to strip.
Vulcan now makes his anvil ring,
Dick whistles loud, and Maud doth sing,
And Silvio with his bugle horn
Winds an Imprime unto the Morn.
Now through the morning doors behold
Phoebus array'd in burning gold,
Lashing his fiery steeds, displays
His warm and all-enlight'ning rays.
Now each one to his work prepares,
All that have hands are labourers,
And manufactures of each trade
By op'ning shops are open laid.
Hob yokes his oxen to the team,
The angler goes unto the stream,
The woodman to the purlews hies,
And lab'ring bees to load their thighs.
Fair Amarillis drives her flocks,
All night safe-folded from the fox,
To flow'ry downs, where Colin stays,
To court her with his roundelays.
The traveller now leaves his inn
A new day's journey to begin,
As he would post it with the day,
And early rising makes good way.
The slick-fac'd school-boy satchel takes,
And with slow pace small riddance makes;
For why, the haste we make, you know
To Knowledge and to Virtue's slow.
The fore-horse jingles on the road,
The wagoner lugs on his load,
The field with busy people snies,
And city rings with various cries.
The World is now a busy swarm,
All doing good, or doing harm;
But let's take heed our acts be true,
For Heaven's eye sees all we do.
None can that piercing sight evade,
It penetrates the darkest shade,
And sin, though it could 'scape the eye,
Would be discover'd by the cry.