And makes what happiness we justly call Subsist, not in the good of one, but all. There's not a blessing individuals find, But some way leans and hearkens to the kind, No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride, No cavern'd hermit rests self-satisfy'd: Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend, Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend: Abstract what others feel, what others think, Each has his share; and who would more obtain, Order is heav'n's first law; and this confest, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence That such are happier, shocks all common sense, Heav'n to mankind impartial we confess, If all are equal in their happiness : But mutual wants this happiness increase; All nature's diff'rence keeps all nature's peace, In who obtain defence, or who defend, In him who is, or him who finds a friend: One common blessing, as one common soul. And each were equal, must not all contest? But heaven's just balance equal will appear, While those are plac'd in hope, and these in fear: Not present good or ill, the joy or curse, But future views of better or of worse. Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise, By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise. Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and nature meant to mere mankind, Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence. But health consists with temperance alone; And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own. The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain; But these less taste them as they worse obtain. Say, in pursuit of profit or delight, Who risk the most, that take wrong means or right? For ills or accidents that chance to all. See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife! Was this their virtue, or contempt of life? Why, full of days and honour, lives the sire? Lent heav'n a parent to the poor and me? What makes all physical or moral ill ?.... There deviates nature, and here wanders will. God sends not ill, if rightly understood; Or partial ill is universal good, Or 'change admits, or nature lets it fall, Short, and but rare, till man improv'd it all. |