Ο CHA P. XV. ON HAPPINES S. H HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim ! Good, Pleasure, Eafe, Content! whate'er thy name That fomething ftill which prompts the eternal figh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die; Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, O'erlook'd, feen double, by the fool, and wife. Plant of celeftial feed! if dropt below, Say, in what mortal foil thou deign'st to grow ? Fair op'ning to fome Court's propitious shine, 'Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine? 'Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaffian laurels yield, 'Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field ? Where grows?-where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the foil: Fix'd to no spot is Happiness fincere, *Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where; 'Tis never to be bought, but always free, And, fled from monarchs, ST. JOHN ! dwells with thee. Some place the blifs in action, fome in eafe, To truft in every thing, or doubt of all. Who thus define it, fay they more or less Than this, that Happiness is Happiness? Take Take Nature's path, and mad Opinions leave: All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well; And mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is Common Senfe, and Common Eafe. Remember, Man, "the Universal Caufe "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;" And makes what Happinefs we justly call Subfift not in the good of one, but all. There's not a bleffing Individuals find. But fome way leans and hearkens to the kind; No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with pride, No cavern'd Hermit, refts self-satisfied : Who most to fhun or hate Mankind pretend, Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend : Abstract what others feel; what others think, All pleasures ficken, and all glories fink : Each has his fhare; and who would more obtain Shall find, the pleasure pays not half the pain. ORDER is Heav'n's first law; and this confeft, Some are, and muft be, greater than the reft, More rich; more wife; but who infers from hence That fuch are happier, fhocks all common fenfe. Heav'n to mankind impartial we confefs, If all are equal in their Happiness : But mutual wants this Happinefs increase; 1 Heav'n breathes thro' every member of the whole But future views of better, or of worse. Know, all the good that individuals find, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. K С НА Р. XVI. ON VIRTUE, NOW thou this truth (enough for man to know) The only point where human blifs ftands ftill, POPE The The joy unequall'd if its end it gain, And but more relifh'd as the more diftrefs'd : Lefs pleafing far than Virtue's very tears: Never elated, while one man's opprefs'd; See the fole blifs Heav'n could on all beftow! For him alone, Hope leads from goal to goal, And opens ftill, and opens on his foul; It pours the blifs that fills up all the mind. He fees why Nature plants in man alone Hope of known blifs, and Faith in blifs unknown: (Nature, (Nature, whose dictates to no other kind Are given in vain, but what they feek they find) Self-love thus pufh'd to focial, to divine, Grafp the whole worlds of Reason, Life, and Sense, And height of Blifs but height of Charity God loves from Whole to Parts: But human foul Self-love but ferves the virtuous mind to wake, Earth fmiles around, with boundless bounty bleft, POPE. CHAP. |