Though tender of thy fame, could interpose?
Believe me, sense, here, acts a double part,
And the true critic is a Christian too.
But these, thou think'st, are gloomy paths to joy.
True joy in sunshine ne'er was found at first.
They first themselves offend who greatly please, 785
And travel only gives us sound repose.
Heaven sells all pleasure; effort is the price.
The joys of conquest are the joys of man ;
And Glory the victorious laurel spreads
O'er Pleasure's pure, perpetual, placid stream.
There is a time when toil must be preferr'd,
Or joy, by mistimed fondness, 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; 795
From thought's full bent and energy the true;
And that demands a mind in equal poise,
Remote from gloomy grief and glaring joy.
Much joy not only speaks small happiness,
But happiness that shortly must expire.
Can joy, unbottom'd in reflection, stand?
And, in a tempest, 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 threatening Death, and not turn pale ?
In such a world, and such a nature, these
Are needful fundamentals of delight:
These fundamentals give delight indeed;
Delight pure, delicate, and durable;
Delight unshaken, masculine, divine;
A constant and a sound, but serious joy.
Is Joy the daughter of Severity?
It is :-yet far my doctrine from severe.
Rejoice for ever:' it becomes a man ;
Exalts, and sets 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 every sense;
To the great Founder of the bounteous feast
Drinks glory, gratitude, eternal praise;
And he that will not pledge her is a churl
Ill firmly to support, good fully taste,
Is the whole science of felicity:
Yet, sparing, pledge; her bowl is not the best
Mankind can boast. A rational repast,
Exertion, vigilance, a mind in arms,
A military discipline of thought,
To foil temptation in the doubtful field,
And ever-waking ardour for the right.'
'Tis these first give, then guard a cheerful heart.
Nought, that is right, think little; well aware
What Reason bids, God bids: by his command
How aggrandized the smallest thing we do!
Thus nothing is insipid to the wise;
To thee insipid all but what is mad,
Joys season'd high, and tasting strong of guilt.
'Mad! (thou reply'st, with indignation fired)
Of ancient sages proud to tread the steps,
I follow Nature.'-Follow Nature still,
But look it be thine own. Is Conscience, then,
No part of Nature? is she not supreme?
Thou regicide! O raise her from the dead!
Then follow Nature, and resemble God.
When, spite of conscience, pleasure is pursued, 845 Man's nature is unnaturally pleased;
And what's unnatural is painful too
At intervals, and must disgust e'en thee!
The fact thou know'st; but not, perhaps, the cause.
Virtue's foundations with the world's were laid:
Heaven mix'd her with our make, and twisted close
Her sacred interests with the strings of life :
Who breaks her awful mandate shocks himself,
His better self: and is it greater pain
Our soul should murmur, or our dust repine?
And one, in their eternal war, must bleed.
If one must suffer, which should least be spared?
The pains of mind surpass the pains of sense:
Ask, then, the Gout, what torment is in guilt?—
The joys of sense to mental joys are mean:
Sense on the present only feeds: the soul
On past and future forages for joy :
"Tis hers, by retrospect, through time to range, And forward Time's great sequel to survey.
Could human courts take vengeance on the mind, 865
Axes might rust, 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,
Lured by the beating of his pulse, to list
With every lust that wars against his peace,
And sets him quite at variance with himself.
Thyself first know, then love: a self there is,
Of virtue fond, that kindles at her charms:
A self there is, as fond of every vice,
While every virtue wounds it to the heart;
Humility degrades it, Justice robs,
Bless'd Bounty beggars it, fair Truth betrays,
And godlike Magnanimity destroys
This self, when rival to the former, scorn;
When not in competition, kindly treat,
Defend it, feed it but when Virtue bids,
Toss 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 ?-Self-love in a mistake: A poor blind merchant buying joys too dear. And virtue what? 'tis Self-love in her wits, Quite skilful in the market of delight.
Self-love's good sense is love of that dread Power 890 From whom herself, and all she can enjoy.
Other self-love is but disguised self-hate,
More mortal than the malice of our foes;
A self-hate now scarce felt, then felt full sore,
When being cursed, extinction loud implored,
And, in this choice triumphant, boasts of joy,
And every thing preferr'd to what we are.
Yet this self-love Lorenzo makes his choice,
How is his want of happiness betray'd
By disaffection 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 rolls
From cheat to cheat, impatient of a pause.
What is it?'Tis the cradle of the soul,
From Instinct sent, to rock her in disease,
Which her physician, Reason, will not cure.
A poor expedient! yet thy best; and while
It mitigates thy pain, it owns it too.
Such are Lorenzo's wretched remedies!
The weak have remedies, the wise have joys.
Superior wisdom is superior bliss.
And what sure mark distinguishes the wise?
Consistent Wisdom ever wills the same;
Thy fickle wish is ever on the wing.
Sick of herself is Folly's character,
As Wisdom's is a modest self-applause.
A change of evils is thy good supreme,
Nor but in motion canst thou find thy rest.
Man's greatest strength is shown in standing stiil.
The first sure 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 self-sustain'd, the true.
The true is fix'd and solid as a rock;
Slippery the false, and tossing, as the wave.
This a wild wanderer on earth, like Cain:
That like the fabled, self-enamour'd boy,
Home contemplation her supreme 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 a more happy than himself:
Then envy dies, and love o'erflows on all;
And love o'erflowing makes an angel here.
Such angels all, entitled to repose
On Him who governs fate. Though tempest frowns,
Though Nature shakes, how soft to lean on Heaven!
To lean on Him on whom archangels lean!
With inward eyes, and silent as the grave,
They stand collecting every beam of thought,
Till their hearts kindle with divine delight;
For all their thoughts, like angels, seen of old
In Israel's dream, come from, and go to heaven;
Hence are they studious of sequester'd scenes,
While noise and dissipation comfort thee.
Were all men happy, revellings would cease,
That opiate for inquietude within.
Lorenzo! never man was truly bless'd,
But it composed and gave him such a cast,
As Folly might mistake for want of joy:
A cast, unlike the triumph of the proud;
A modest aspect, and a smile at heart.
O for a joy from thy Philander's spring!
A spring perennial, rising in the breast,
And permanent as pure! no turbid stream
Of rapturous exultation, swelling high,
Which, like land-floods, impetuous pour a while,
Then sink at once, and leave us in the mire.
What does the man who transient joy prefers?
What, but prefer the bubbles to the stream?
Vain are all sudden sallies of delight,
Convulsions of a weak distemper'd joy.
Joy's a fix'd state; a tenour, not a start.
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