To-morrow

To-morrow, did'st thou say! Methought I heard Horatio say, to-morrow: Go to—I will not hear of it—to-morrow! 'Tis a sharper, who stakes his penury Against thy plenty—who takes thy ready cash, And pays thee nought but wishes, hopes and promises, The currency of idiots. Injurious bankrupt, That gulls the easy creditor.—To-morrow! It is a period no where to be found, In all the hoary registers of time, Unless perchance in the fool's calendar. Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holds society With those who own it. No, my Horatio, 'Tis fancy's child, and folly is its father; Wrought of such stuff as dreams are, and baseless As the fantastic visions of the evening.

But soft, my friend; arrest the present moments; For be assur'd, they all are arrant tell-tales; And tho' their flight be silent, and their path Trackless, as the wing'd couriers of the air, They post to heav'n, and there record thy folly; Because, tho' station'd on th' important watch, Thou, like a sleeping, faithless centinel, Didst let them pass unnotic'd, unimprov'd.