So might the plough-boy climb a tree,
When Croesus mounts his throne,
And both stand up, and smile to see,
How long their shadow's grown:
Alas! how vain their fancies be,
To think that shape their own!
Thus mingled still with wealth and state,
Croesus himself can never know;
His true dimensions and his weight
Are far inferior to their show.
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measur'd by my soul:
The mind's the standard of the man.
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 dropt below,
Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair opening to some court's propitious shine,‹
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field? :
Where grows?-where grows it not? If vain our
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil :
Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,
'Tis no where to be found, or every where:
'Tis never to be bought, but always free, [thee.
And fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with
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 ev'n virtue vain!
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in ev'ry thing, 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;
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 sense and common ease.
Remember, man, 'the Universal Cause,
Acts not by partial but by general laws,'
And makes what happiness we justly call
Subsist not in the good of one, but all.
There's not a blessing individuals find,
But someway 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 Heaven's first law; and, this confess'd,
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.
Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness:
But mutual wants this happiness increase:
All nature's difference 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:
Heaven breathes through every member of the
whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
But fortune's gifts, if each alike possess'd,
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 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.
O 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 compePope.
KNOW then this truth (enough for man to know), 'Virtue alone is happiness below :'
The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is bless'd 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 distress'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 remain,
Since but to wish more virtue is to gain.
See the sole bliss Heaven 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 the soul,
Till lengthen'd on to faith, and unconfin'd,
It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind.
He sees why nature plants in man alone
Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown:
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind
Are given in vain, but what they seek they find)
Wise is her present; she connects in this
His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss ;
At once his own bright prospect to be bless'd,
And strongest motive to assist the rest.
Self-love thus 'push'd to social, to divine, Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine. Is this too little for the boundless heart? Extend it, let thy enemies have part: Grasp the whole world of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence: Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree, And height of bliss but height of charity.
God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads; Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace; His country next; and next all human race; Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind Take every creature in of every kind: Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty bless'd, And Heaven beholds its image in his breast.
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