Alas! the idle tale of man is found
Depicted in the dial's moral round;
Hope with reflection blends her social rays
To gild the total tablet of his days;
Yet still, the sport of some malignant power,
He knows but from its shade the present hour.
The meaning of these lines may be elucidated somewhat by the following:
Human Life is like the plate of a dial, hope brightens the future, Reflection the hour that is past - but the present is always mark'd with a shadow - (quoted in Buried Communities, Kurt Fosso, p30) from a fragment on the same manuscript containing the text of Orpheus and Eurydice.
The passage remains problematical, however. The references are to a sundial, but, though we understand that the present is indicated by the shadow on the face of the sundial, In what sense can the present be considered a shadow for a human being? And how does Hope blend her 'social rays' with Reflexion, and 'gild the total tablet of his (a man's) days'? Where does the 'total tablet' fit into the scheme of the sundial? Or is he just being wilfully obscure?
Una is the main female character in Edmund Spenser's Fairy Queen. She represents truth and beauty.