Heav'n fells all pleasure; effort is the price;
The joys of conquest, are the joys of man;
id glory the victorious lauret ipreads
O'er pleasure's pure, perpetual, placid stream
There is a time, when toil must be preferr'a:
Or joy, by mittim'd fondnets, is undone.
A man of pleasure, is a man of pains.
Thou wilt not take the trouble to be bless'd.
False joys, indeed, are born from want of thought.
From thought's full beut, and energy, the trae;
And that demands a mind in equal poize,
Remote from gloomy grief, and glaring joy.
Much joy not only speaks finall happiness,
But happinefs, that thortly muft expire.
Can joy, unbottom'd in reflection, stand?
And, in a tempeft, can reflection live?
Can joy, like thine, secure itself an hour?
Can joy, like thine, meet accident unshock'd?
Or ope the door to honest poverty?
Or talk with threat'ning death, and not turn pale?
In fuch a world, and fuch a nature, thefe
Are needful fundamentals of delight :
These fundamentals give delight indeed;
Delight, pure, delicate, and durable;
Delight, unthaken, mafculine, divine;
A conftant, and a found, but ferions joy.
Is joy the daughter of severity?
It is yet far my doctrine from fevere.
Rejoice for ever: it becomes a man;
Exalts, and fets him nearer to the gods.
"Rejoice for ever;" Nature cries, "Rejoice;"
And drinks to man in her nectareous cup,
Mix'd up of delicates for ev'ry tente;
To the great Founder of the bounteous fealt,
Drinks glory, gratitude, eternal praife;
And be that will not pledge her is a churl.
Il firmly to fupport, good fully taste,
Is the whole science of felicity.
Yet sparing pledge: hor bowl is not the best
Mankind can boatt. A rational repast;
"Exertion, vigilance, a mind in arms,
"A nailitary difcipline of thought,
"To foil temptation in the doubtful field;
And ever-waking ardor for the right."
Tis these, first, give, then guard, a chearful heart. Nought that is right, think little; well aware, What reason bids, Gor bids; by His command How aggrandiz'd the smallest thing we do! Thus, nothing is infipid to the wite; To thee, infipid all, but what is mad; Joys season'd high, and tafting strong of guilt.
"Mad! (thou reply'st, with indignation fir'd) "Of ancient sages proud to tread the steps, "I follow nature." -Follow nature still, But look it be thine own: is confcience, then, No part of nature? is the not fupreme? Thou regicide! raife her from the dead! Then follow nature; and resemble GOD.
When, spite of confcience, pleasure is purfu'd,
Man's nature is unnaturally pleas'd:
And what's unnatural, is painful too
At intervals, and must disgusst even thee!
The fact thou know'it, but not, perhaps, the
Virtue's foundations with the world's were laid;
Heav'n mix'd her with our make, and twisted close
Her facred iut'refts with the ftrings of life.
Who breaks her awful mandate, fhocks himself,
His better self: and is it greater pain,
Our foul should murmur, or our dutt repine?
And one, in their eternal war, must bleed.
If one must fuffer, which should least be fpar'd?.
The pains of mind furpass the pains of fenfe:
Afk, then, the gout, what torment is in guilt.
The joys of fense to mental joys are mean:
Senfe on the present only feeds; the foul
On past, and future, forages for joy.
'Tis her's, by retrospect, thro' time to range;
And forward time's great fequel to furvey..
Could human courts take vengeance on the mind,
Axes might ruft, and racks, and gibbets, fall :...
Guard, then, thy mind, and leave the rest to fate.
LORENZO! wilt thou never be a man?
The man is dead, who for the body lives,
Lur'd, by the beating of his pulse, to lift
With ev'ry luft that, wars against his peace,
And feis him quite at variance with himself.
Thyself, first, know; then love: a felf there is
Of virtue fond, that kindles at her charins...
A felf there is as fond of ev'ry vice,
While ev'ry virtue wounds it to the heart;
Humility degrades it, justice robs,
Bless'd bounty beggars it, fair truth betrays,
And godlike magnanimity destroys.
This telf, when rival to the foriner, scorn;
When not in competition, kindly treat,
Defend it, feed it but when virtue bids,
Tofs it, or to the fowls, or to the flames.
And why? 'tis love of pleasure bids thee bleed
Comply, or own self-love extinct, or blind.
For, what is vice? felf-love in a mistake;
A poor blind merchant buying joys too dear.
And virtue, what? 'tis self-love in her wits,
Quite filful in the market of delight.
Self-love's good-sense is love of that dread Pow'r,
From whom herself, and all the can enjoy.
Other felf-love is but disguis'd felf-hate;
More mortal than the malice of our foes
A self-hate, now, scarce felt; then felt full fore,
When being, curs'd; extinction, loud implor'd
And ev'ry thing prefer'd to what we are.
Yer this felf-love LORENZO makes his choice,
And, in this choice triumphant, boasts of joy.
How is his want of happiness betray'd,
By difaffection to the present hour!
Imagination wanders far a-field:
The future pleases: why? the present.pains.
" But that's a secret."-Yes, which all men know;
And know from thee, discover'd unawares.
Thy ceaseless agitation, restless roll
From cheat to cheat, impatient of a pause;
What is it? 'tis the cradle of the foul,
From instinct sent, to rock her in disease,
Which her phyfician, Reason, will not cure.
A poor expedient! yet thy beft; and while
It mitigates thy pain, it owns it too.
Such are LORENZO's wretched remedies!
The weak have remedies; the wife have joys.
Superior wifdom is fuperior blifs.
And what fure mark ditinguithes the wife?
Confiftent wifdom ever wills the fame;
Thy fickle with is ever on the wing.
Sick of herself is folly's character;
As wisdom's is, a modest self-applaufe.
A change of evils is thy good fupreme;
Nor, but in motion, canít thou find thy rest.
Man's greatest strength is shewn in standing Mill.
The first fure symptom of a mind in health,
Is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.
False pleasure from abroad her joys imports;
Rich from within, and felf-futtain'd, the true.
The true is fix'd, and solid as a rock;
Slipp'ry the false, and tolling, as the wave.
This, a wild wanderer on earth, like Cain;
That, like the fabled, felf-enamour'd boy,
Home-contemplation her fupreme delight;
She dreads an interruption from without,
Smit with her own condition; and the more
Intense she gazes, still it charms the more.
No man is happy, till he thinks, on earth There breathes not one more happy than himself. Then envy dies, and love o'erflows on all; And love o'erflowing makes an angel here. Such angels all, intitled to repose On Him who governs fate. "Tho' tempeft frowns, Tho' nature shakes, how soft to lean on Heav'n! To lean on Him, on whom archangels lean ! With inward eyes, and filent as the grave, They stand collecting ev'ry beam of thought, Till their hearts kindle with divine delight; For all their thoughts, like angels, seen of old In Ifrael's dream, come from, and go to, heav'n: Hence, are they studious of sequester'd scenes; While noife and diffipation comfort thee..
Were all men happy, revellings would cease,
That opiate for inquietude within.
LORENZO! never man was truly blest,
But it compos'd, and gave him fuch a caft,
As folly might mistake for want of joy.
A cast, unlike the triumph of the proud;
A modeft afpect, and a smile at heart.
O for a joy from thy Philander's fpring!
A fpring perennial, rising in the breaft,
And permanent, as pure! no turbid stream
Of rapt'rous exultation swelling high;
Which, like land-floods, impetuous pour a-while,
Then fink at once, and leave us in the mire...
What does the man, who tranfient joy prefers?: 1
What, but prefer the bubbles to the stream?
Vain are all fudden fallies of delight;
Convulfions of a weak diftemper'd joy."
Joy's a fix'd state; a tenor, not a start.
Bliss there is none, but imprecarious blifs
That is the gem: fell all, and purchase that.
Why go a-begging to contingencies,
Not gain'd with ease, nor fafely low'd, if gain?
At good fortuitoos, draw back, and paute;
Suspect it; what thou canst enfure, enjoy;
And nought but what thou giv'ft thyself, is fure.
Reason perpetuates joy that realon gives,
And makes it as immortal as herself:
To mortals, nought immortal, but their worth..
Worth, confcious worth thould absolutely reign; And other joys ask leave for their approach; Nor, unexamin'd, ever leave obrain. Thou art all anarchy; a mob of joys Wage war, and perish in inteftine broils..... Not the leaft promife of internal peace No bofom-comfort! or unborrow'd blist... Thy thoughts are vagabonds; all outward-bounds... 'Midst sands, and rocks, and storms, to cruite for
If gain'd, dear-bought; and better miss'd than gain'd.
Much pain mult expiate, what much pain procur'd.
Fancy, and fenfe, from an infected thore,
Thy cargo bring; and peftilence the prize.
Then, such thy thirft, (infatiable thirit!
By fond indulgence but infiam'd the more),
Fancy still cruises, when poor soufe is tir'da
Imagination is the Paphion thep,
Where feeble happiness, like VULCAN lame,
Bids foul ideas, in their dark recefs,
And hot as hell (which kindled their black fires)
With wanton art, these fatal arrows form,
Which murder all the time, health, wealth, and
Wouldst thou receive them, other thoughts there are
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