If vice it is with Nature to comply:
If pride and sense are so predominant,
To check, not overcome them, makes a saint, Can Nature in a plainer voice proclaim Pleasure and glory the chief good of man?' Can Pride and Sensuality rejoice? From purity of thought all pleasure springs, And from an humble spirit all our peace. Ambition, Pleasure! let us talk of these; Of these the Porch and Academy talk'd;
Of these each following age had much to say, Yet unexhausted, still, the needful theme. Who talks of these, to mankind all at once
He talks; for where the saint from either free? Are these thy refuge?-No; these rush upon thee Thy vitals seize, and, vulture like, devour: I'll try if I can pluck thee from thy rock, Prometheus! from this barren ball of earth, If Reason can unchain thee, thou art free.
And first, thy Caucasus, Ambition, calls; - Mountain of torments! eminence of woes! Of courted woes! and courted through mistake! 'Tis not ambition charms thee; 'tis a cheat Will make thee start, as H- at his Moor. Dost grasp at greatness? first know what it is. Think'st thou thy greatness in distinction lies? Not in the feather, wave it e'er so high,
By Fortune stuck, to mark us from the throng, Is glory lodged: 'tis lodged in the reverse; Is that which joins, in that which equals all,
The monarch and his slave, a deathless soul,
Unbounded prospect, and immortal kin,
A Father God, and brothers in the skies;' Elder, indeed, in time, but less remote
In excellence, perhaps, than thought by man Why greater what can fall than what can rise? If still delirious, now, Lorenzo! go,
And, with thy full blown brothers of the world,
Throw scorn around thee; cast it on thy slaves, Thy slaves and equals. How scorn cast on them Rebounds on thee! If man is mean, as man, Art thou a god? if Fortune makes him so, Beware the consequence: a maxim that Which draws a monstrous picture of mankind, Where, in the drapery, the man is lost; Externals fluttering, and the soul forgot. Thy greatest glory, when disposed to boast, Boast that aloud in which thy servants share. We wisely strip the steed we mean to buy. Judge we, in their comparisons, of men?
It nought avails thee where, but what, thou art. All the distinctions of this little life
Are quite cutaneous, foreign to the man.
When through Death's straits Earth's subtle serpents
Which wriggle into wealth, or climb renown, As crooked Satan the forbidden tree, They leave their party-colour'd robe behind, All that now glitters, while they rear aloft Their brazen crests, and hiss at us below. Of Fortune's fucus strip them, yet alive, Strip them of body too; nay, closer still, Away with all but moral in their minds, And let what then remains impose their name, Pronounce them weak or worthy, great or mean. How mean that snuff of glory Fortune lights, And Death puts out! Dost thou demand a test, A test, at once, infallible and short, Of real greatness? that man greatly lives, Whate'er his fate or fame, who greatly dies; High flush'd with hope where heroes shall dospair. If this a true criterion, many courts,
Illustrious, might afford but few grandees.
The' Almighty, from his throne, on earth surveys Nought greater than an honest, humble heart; An humble heart, his residence! pronounced
His second seat, and rival to the skies.
The private path, the secret acts of men, If noble, far the noblest of our lives!
How far above Lorenzo's glory sits
The' illustrious master of a name unknown? Whose worth, unrival'd and unwitness'd, loves Life's sacred shades, where gods converse with men, And peace, beyond the world's conceptions, smiles; As thou (now dark) before we part shalt see. But thy great soul this skulking glory scorns : Lorenzo's sick but when Lorenzo's seen, And when he shrugs at public business lies. Denied the public eye, the public voice, As if he lived on others' breath, he dies. Fain would he make the world his pedestal, Mankind the gazers, the sole figure he.
Knows he, that mankind praise against their will, And mix as much detraction as they can?
Knows he, that faithless Fame her whisper has, As well as trumpet? that his vanity
Is so much tickled, from not hearing all? Knows this all knower, that from itch of praise, Or from an itch more sordid, when he shines, Taking his country by five hundred ears,
Sedatos at once admire him and despise,
With modest laughter lining loud applause,
Which makes the smile more mortal to his fame?
His fame which (like the mighty Cæsar) crown'd 505 With laurels, in full senate, greatly falls,
By seeming friends, that honour and destroy. We rise in glory as we sink in pride :
Where boasting ends, there dignity begins;
And yet, mistaken beyond all mistake,
The blind Lorenzo's proud-of being proud, And dreams himself ascending, in his fall.
An eminence, though fancied, turns the brain;
All vice wants hellebore; but of al vice
Pride loudest calls, and for the largest bowl;
because, unlike all other vice, it flies,
In fact, the point in fancy most pursued. Who court applause oblige the world in this; They gratify man's passion to refuse. Superior honour, when assumed, is lost : E'en good men turn banditti, and rejoice, Like Kouli-Kan, in plunder of the proud.
Though somewhat disconcerted, steady still To the world's cause; with half a face of joy, Lorenzo cries,- Be, then, Ambition cast; Ambition's dearer far stands unimpeach'd, Gay Pleasure! proud Ambition is her slave; For her he soars at great, and hazards ill; For her he fights, and bleeds, or overcomes,
And paves his way, with crowns, to reach her smile.
Who can resist her charms?'-Or should? Lorenzo' What mortal shall resist where angels yield? Pleasure's the mistress of ethereal powers; For her contend the rival gods above; Pleasure's the mistress of the world below, And well it is for man that Pleasure charms, How would all stagnate but for Pleasure's ray! How would the frozen stream of action cease! What is the pulse of this so busy world? The love of pleasure: that, through every vein, 540 l'hrows motion, warmth, and shuts out death from life Though various are the tempers of mankind, Pleasure's gay family holds all in chains. Some most affect the black, and some the fair; Some honest pleasure court, and some obscene. Pleasures obscene are various, as the throng Of passions that can err in human hearts, Mistake their objects, or transgress their bounds. Think you there's but one whoredom? whoredom But when our reason licenses delight.
Dost doubt, Lorenzo ?-thou shalt doubt no more. Thy father chides thy gallantries, yet hugs An ugly, common harlot in the dark,
A rank adulterer with others' gold;
And that hag, Vengeance, in a corner charms Hatred her brother has, as well as Love, Where horrid epicures debauch in blood.
Whate'er the motive, Pleasure is the mark:
For her the black assassin draws his sword;
For her dark statesmen trim their midnight lamp, 560 To which no single sacrifice may fall;
For her the saint abstains, the miser starves;
The stoic proud, for Pleasure, pleasure scorn'd;
For her Affliction's daughters grief indulge,
And find, or hope, a luxury in tears;
For her guilt, shame, toil, danger, we defy, And, with an aim voluptuous, rush on death: Thus universal her despotic power!
And as her empire wide, her praise is just.
Patron of Pleasure! Doter on delight!
And honest Epicurus' foes were fools.
I am thy rival; pleasure I profess; Pleasure the purpose of my gicomy song. Fleasure is nought but Virtue's gayer name; I wrong her still, I rate her worth too low: Virtue the root, and pleasure is the flower;
But this sounds harsh, and gives the wise offence.
If o'erstrain'd wisdom still retains the name.
How knits Austerity her cloudy brow,
And blames, as bold and hazardous, the praise
Of pleasure, to mankind unpraised, too dear! Ye modern stoics! hear iny soft reply;
Their senses men will trust: we can't impose, Or, if we could, is imposition right?
Own honey sweet; but, owning, add this sting, 'When mix with poison it is deadly too.'
Truth never was indebted to a lie.
Is nought but virtue to be praised as good? Why then is health preferr'd before disease? What Nature loves is good, without our leave; And where no future drawback cries, Beware,'
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