And tastes the good without the fall to ill;

Where only Merit constant pay receives, Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives;

The joy unequall'd if its end it gain,
And if it lose attended with no pain:
Without satiety, though e'er so bless'd,
And but more relish'd as the more dis-
tress'd;

The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears
Less pleasing far than Virtue's very tears:
Good, from each object, from each place
acquir'd,

For ever exercis'd yet never tir'd;
Never elated while one man's oppress'd;
Never dejected while another's bless'd :
And where no wants, no wishes can re-
main,

Since but to wish more Virtue is to gain. See the sole bliss Heav'n could on all bestow !

Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know ;

Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,

The bad must miss; the good, untaught, will find:

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,

But looks through Nature, up to Nature's God;

Pursues that chain which links th' immense design,

Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine;

Sees, that no being any bliss can know, But touches some above, and some below; Learns, from this union of the rising whole,

The first, last purpose of the human soul; And knows where Faith, Law, Morals, all began,

All end in Love of God, and Love of Man.

For him alone Hope leads from goal to goal,

And opens still, and opens on his soul; Till lengthen'd on to Faith, and unconfined,

It pours the bliss that fills up all the

mind.

He sees why Nature plants in man alone

Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,

And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his

blood.

O blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle marked by
Heav'n;

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a
world.

Hope humbly, then, with trembling
pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore.

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,

But gives that Hope to be thy blessing

now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always TO BE blest: The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind

Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind; [stray His soul proud Science never taught to Far as the solar walk, or milky way; Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n, Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, a humbler heav'n;

Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,

Some happier island in the wat'ry waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, nor Christians thirst for gold.

TO BE, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire:
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of

Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust; If man alone engross not Heav'n's high

care,

Alone made perfect here, immortal there : Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,

Re-judge his justice, be the God of God. In Pride, in reasoning Pride, our error lies;

All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies,

Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be
Gods.

Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel :
And who but wishes to revert the laws
Of Order sins against th' Eternal Cause.

Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,

Being on being wreck'd, and world on world,

Heav'n's whole foundations to the centre nod,

And nature tremble to the throne of God: All this dread order break-from whom? for thee?

Vile worm!-Oh madness! pride! impiety!

What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,

Or hand to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Just as absurd to mourn the task or pains,
The great directing Mind of All ordains,

All are but parts of one stupendous
whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul: That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,

Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the

trees,

Lives through all life, extends through all extent,

Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns; To him no high, no low, no great, no small; [all. He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals Cease, then, nor Order Imperfection

name:

Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.

Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree

Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee

Submit. In this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.

Zeal, then, not Charity, became the guide;

And Hell was built on spite, and Heav'n on pride.

Then sacred seem'd th' ethereal vault no more ;

Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore:

Then first the flamen tasted living food; Next his grim idol, smear'd with human blood;

With Heav'n's own thunders shook the world below,

And play'd the God an engine on his foe. So drives Self-love, through just and through unjust,

To one Man's pow'r, ambition, lucre, lust:

The same Self-love, in all, becomes the

Self-love forsook the path it first pursu'd, And found the private in the public good. 'Twas then the studious head or gen'rous mind,

kind,

Poet or Patriot, rose but to restore

The faith and moral Nature gave before; Relum'd her ancient light, not kindled

new;

If not God's image, yet his shadow drew; Taught pow'r's due use to people and to kings,

Taught nor to slack nor strain its tender strings,

The less or greater set so justly true,
That touching one must strike the other

too;

Till jarring int'rests of themselves create

Thus God and Nature link'd the gen'ral frame,

And bade Self-love and Social be the

same.

ON HAPPINESS.

O HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim! Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! whate'er thy name;

That something still, which prompts th eternal sigh;

For which we bear to live, or dare to die;

Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,

O'erlook'd, seen double by the fool, and wise,

Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below, Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?

Fair op'ning to some court's propitious shine,

Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?

Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,

Or reaped in iron harvests of the field? Where grows?-where grows it not? If vain our toil,

We ought to blame the culture, not the soil :

Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere, 'Tis nowhere to be found, or ev'rywhere; 'Tis never to be bought, but always free, And, fled from monarchs, St. John dwells with thee.

Ask of the Learn'd the way, the Learn'd are blind,

This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind:

Some place the bliss in action, some in

ease,

Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment these:

Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain,

Some, swell'd to Gods, confess e'en virtue vain :

Or indolent, to each extreme they fall, To trust in ev'rything, or doubt of all. Who thus define it say they, more or less Than this, that Happiness is Happiness? Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave, [ceive; All states can reach it, and all heads conObvious her goods, in no extremes they dwell;

There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;

And mourn our various portions as we please,

Equal is common sense and common ease. Remember, Man, "The Universal Cause Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;" makes what Happiness we justly all

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-satisfied : Who most to shun or hate Mankind pretend,

Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend : Abstract what others feel, what others think,

All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink: Each has his share; and who would more

obtain

Shall find the pleasure pays not half the pain.

Order is Heav'n's first law; and this con. fess'd,

Some are, and must be, greater than the rest;

More rich, more wise: but who infers
from hence
[sense.

That such are happier shocks all common
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.

Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king;
In who obtain defence, or who defend ;
In him who is, or him who finds a friend:
Heav'n breathes through ev'ry member of
the whole

One common blessing, as one common soul.

But Fortune's gifts if each alike possess'd, And all were equal, must not all contest! If then to all men Happiness was meant, God in externals could not place Content.

Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, And these be happy call'd, unhappy those ;

But Heav'n's just balance equal will ap pear,

While those are placed in Hope, and these in Fear;

Not present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better or of worse.
O, sons of earth, attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the
skies?