Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SOLILOQUY, by ANN YEARSLEY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SOLILOQUY, by                    
First Line: How patiently toils on this little watch
Last Line: With us, the life of man is but a day.
Alternate Author Name(s): Cromartie, Ann
Subject(s): Authors And Authorship; Time


Begun from the circumstance of the moment, and prolonged as the images of
memory arose in the mind of the author, February 27, 1795

Author to her son. Go you to bed, my boy.
Son. Do you write to-night?
Author. I do.
Son (laying his watch on the table). See, how late!
Author. No matter—You can sleep.

How patiently toils on this little watch!
My veins beat to its motion. Ye who sing
Of atoms, rest, and motion, say, why Time
Sets in this toy a larum to my heart.
O sacred Time! thy moment goes not down
But I go with it! Sixty coming hours
Are with us poor expectants of more price
Than sixty years sunk to oblivion. Rise,
Dear Memory, silent fascinating pow'r,
Hated by many: I will be thy slave,
Thy willing slave. Then lead thy shadows round,
Forever sacred to my pensive mind.

Instructive Spirit, hail! For thee I call
Mild Contemplation, from the barren rock
Where mourns the ship-wreck'd mariner, to trim
My midnight lamp. Hail, much rever'd in death!
Thou knew'st to chart the moral world, and bend
The springs of thought to wisdom: thou wert wont
In life to smile, when wilder than the bard
On Cambria's height I struck the lyre: my sigh,
Made harsh and inharmonious by despair,
Thou taught'st to break with melody. This hour,
Led on by Contemplation, I behold
Thine eyes that beam'd benevolence, thy heart
Once rich with fine regard. Ah me! that heart
'Mid this inhospitable scene was mine!

Couldst thou declare how long the storms of fate
Shall beat around me, when I may repose,
Or be as thou art! I have read the code
Of statutes form'd by man for future worlds;
And found his plan, so pompously display'd,
One lot of heterogeneous fragment. Man
Adores in fancy, violates in fact,
Laws serving his frail being. Yon pale moon
Forsakes the mountain top, to bring us round
Her renovated splendour; nature works
Obedient and unseen forever: we
May meet in spheres remote—If not, farewel!
I feel and know, those wishes can arise
But from affections growing with my life,
Mingling with hope, oppress'd by fear. The change
Fulfill'd in thee may chill me; ev'ry thought
Oblit'rate; vision, fancy forms, be doom'd
To sink, like beaming glory in the west;
Whilst space contracts on my weak eye, and heav'ns,
By human artists coloured, fade away,
As life goes gently from my beating heart.

Grant this could be—the import were no more
Than as an atom 'mid the vast profound
Impell'd, not swerving from the whole. Suppose,
This frame dissolving, to the busy winds
My ashes fled dividing: shall I know
To mourn?—How like my brethren I display
Conjecture without end!—Impatient pow'r
Of thought! where wouldst thou fly? Return, return!
Nor lose thy strength in phrensy, nor resign
The form I love.—This watch is down! Ye points,
Attun'd to motion by the art of man,
As tell-tales of his doings, can ye mark
Eternity by measur'd remnants? No.—
Fallacious in your working, ye would say,
With us, the life of man is but a day.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net