Curb thefe licentious fons of ftrife;
Hence chiefly rise the storms of life:
If they grow mutinous, and rave,
They are thy mafters, thou their flave.
Regard the world with cautious eye,
Nor raise your expectation high.
See that the balanc'd fcales be fuch,
You neither fear nor hope too much.
For disappointment's not the thing,
'Tis pride and paffion point the sting.
Life is a fea, where ftorms must rise,
'Tis folly talks of cloudless skies:
He who contracts his fwelling fail
Eludes the fury of the gale.
Be ftill, nor anxious thoughts employ,
Diftruft imbitters present joy::.
On God for all events depend;
You cannot want when God's your friend.
Weigh well your part, and do your bett;
Leave to your Maker all the rest.
The hand which form'd thee in the womb,
Guides from the cradle to the tomb.
Can the fond mother flight her boy;
Can the forget her prattling joy?
Say then shall fov'reign Love defert
The humble, and the honeft heart?
Heav'n may not grant thee all thy mind;
Yet fay not thou that Heav'n's unkind.
God is alike, both good and wife,
In what he grants and what denies:
Perhaps, what Goodness gives to-day,
To-morrow Goodness takes away.
You fay that troubles intervene,
That forrows darken half the scene.
True-----and this confequence you fee,
The world was ne'er defign'd for thee:
You're like a paffenger below,
That stays perhaps a night or fo;
But ftill his native country lies
Beyond the bound'ries of the skies.
Of Heav'n afk virtue, wifdom, health,
But never let thy pray'r be wealth,
If food be thine, (though little gold)
And raiment to repel the cold;
Such as may nature's wants fuffice,
Not what from pride and folly rife;
If foft the motions of thy foul,
And a calm confcience crowns the whole; Add but a friend to all this store,
You can't, in reafon, wish for more:
And if kind Heav'n this comfort brings,
'Tis more than Heav'n beftows on kings. He fpake----The airy spectre flies, And ftrait the fweet illufion dies.
The vifion, at the early dawn,
Confign'd me to the thoughtful morn;
To all the cares of waking clay,
And inconfiftent dreams of day.
FROM POPE'S ESSAY ON MAN.
OH happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something 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 fpot is happiness fincere,
'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where;
'Tis never to be bought, but always free,
And fied from monarchs, St. John, dwells with thee. Ask of the learn'd the way: the learn'd are blind; This bids to ferve, and that to fhun mankind.
Some place the bliss in action, fome in ease ;
Those call it pleasure, and contentment thefe:
Some, funk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some fwell'd to gods, confefs ev'n virtue vain:
Or indolent: to each extreme they fall,
To truft in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, fay they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness ?
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 fenfe, 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 rests self-satisfy'd.
Who moft 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 share; 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 happiness increase,
All nature's diff'rence keeps all nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Blifs is the fame in fubject or in king,
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend:
Heav'n breathes through every member of the whole
One common bleffing as one common foul.
But fortune's gifts if each alike poffeft,
And each 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 appear,
While thofe are plac'd in hope, and thefe in fear:
Not prefent good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better, or of worse.
Oh fons of earth! attempt ye ftill to rife,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Heav'n ftill with laughter the vain toil furveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raife.
|