Perhaps I was void of all thought;
Perhaps it was plain to forefee,
That a nymph fo compleat would be fought
By a fwain more engaging than me.
Ah! love ev'ry hope can infpire:
It banishes wifdom the while;
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems for ever adorn'd with a fmile.
She is faithlefs, and I am undone;
Ye that witnefs the woes I endure,
Let reafon inftruct you to shun
What it cannot inftruct you to cure.
Beware how you loiter in vain
Amid nymphs of an higher degree:
It is not for me to explain
How fair, and how fickle they be. Alas! from the day that we met, What hope of an end to my woes ? When I cannot endure to forget
The glance that undid my repofe. Yet time may diminish the pain:
The flow'r, and the fhrub, and the tree, Which I rear'd for her pleasure in vain, In time may have comfort for me. The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose, The found of a murmuring ftream, The peace which from folitude flows, Henceforth fhall be CORYDON's theme. High transports are fhewn to the fight, But we are not to find them our own; Fate never bestow'd fuch delight,
As I with my PHYLLIS had known. O ye woods, fpread your branches apace, To your deepest receffes I fly;
I would hide with the beats of the chace; I would vanish from every eye.
Yet my reed fhall refound thro' the grove With the fame fad complaint it begun; How the fmil'd, and I could not but love; Was faithlefs, and I am undone !
VIRTUE alone conftitutes Ha APPINESS.
[ESSAY ON MAN, Ep. IV.
W HAT nothing earthly gives or can defroy,
The foul's calm funfhine, and the heartfelt joy,
Is Virtue's prize: a better would you fix?
Then give humility a coach and fix,
Justice a conqu'ror's fword, or truth a gown,
Or public fpirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak, foolish man! will heav'n reward us there
With the fame traîh mad mortals wish for here?
The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet figh'ft thou now for apples and for cakes?
Go, like the Indian, in another life
Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife:
As well as dream fuch trifles are affign'd,
As toys and empires for a god-like mind.
Rewards, that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing:
How oft by these at fixty are undone
The virtues of a faint at twenty-one!
To whom can riches give repute or truft,
Content, or pleafure, but the good and juft?
Judges and fenates have been bought for gold,
Efteem and love were never to be fold.
Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of human kind,
Whole life is healthful, and whofe confcience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.
Honour and fhame from no condition rife;
A&t well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in men has fome fmall diff'rence made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobler apron'd, and the parfon gown'd,
The frier, hooded, and the monarch crown'd.
"What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl ?”
I'll tell you, friend; A wife man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobler-like, the parfon will be drunk,
Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with ftrings,
That thou may't be by kings, or whores of kings,
Boaft the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece:
But by your fathers' worth if your's you rate,
Count me thofe only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept through fcoundrels ever fince the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble fots, or flaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the HowARDS.
Look next on greatness; fay where greatnefs lies!
"Where but among the heroes and the wife ?"
Heroes are much the fame, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find
Or make, an enemy of all mankind!
Not one looks backward, onward ftill he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nofe.'
No lefs alike the Politic and Wife;
All fly flow things, with circumfpective eyes
Men in their loofe unguarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wife, but others weak.
But grant that thofe can conquer, these can cheat;
'Tis phrafe abfurd to call a villain great:
Who wickedly is wife, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, fmiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.
What's Fame! a fancy'd life in others breath,
A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.
Juft what you hear, you have, and what's unknown
The fame (my Lord) if Tully's, or your own.
All that we feel of it begins and ends
In the fmall circle of our foes or friends;
To all befide as much an empty shade
An Eugene living, as a Cafar dead:
Alike or when, or where, they fhone, or shine,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honeft man's the nobleft work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can fave,
As Juftice tears his body from the grave;
When what t' oblivion better were refign'd,
Is hung on high to poifon half mankind.
All fame is foreign, but of true defert;
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart:
One felf-approving hour whole years out-weighs
Of ftupid ftarers, and of loud huzzas ;
And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels,
Than Cefar with a fenate at his heels.
In parts fuperior what advantage lies?
Tell (for You can) what is it to be wise?
'Tis but to know how little can be known;
To fee all others faults, and feel our own:
Condemn'd in bus'nefs or in arts to drudge,.
Without a fecond, or without a judge;
Truths would you teach, or save a finking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful preheminence! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
Bring then thefe bleffings to a ftrict account;
Make fair deductions; fee to what they mount;
How much of other each is fure to coft;
How each for other oft is wholly loft;
How inconfiftent greater goods with thefe;
How fometimes life is rifqu'd, and always ease:
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say, would't thou be the man to whom they fall?
To figh for ribbands if thou art fo filly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy.
Is yellow dirt the paffion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripas' wife.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon fhin'd,
The wifeft, brightest, meaneft of mankind:
Or ravish'd with the whift'ling of a name,
See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame!
If all, united, thy ambition call,
From ancient story learn to fcorn them all,
There, in the rich, the honour'd, fam'd, and great,
See the falfe fcale of Happinefs complete!
In hearts of Kings, or arms of Queens who lay,
How happy thofe to ruin, thefe betray.
Mark by what wretched fteps their glory grows,
From dirt and fea-weed as proud Venice role.
In each how guilt and greatnefs equal ran,
And all that rais'd the Hero, fank the Man:
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But ftain'd with blood, or ill-exchang'd for gold:
Then fee them broke with toils, or funk in ease,
Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.
Oh wealth ill-fated; which no act of fame
E'er taught to fhine, or fanctify'd from fhame!
What greater blifs attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophy'd arches, ftory'd halls invade,
And haunt their flumbers in the pompous fhade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray,
Compute the morn and ev'ning to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,
A tale, that blends their glory with their shame!
Know then this truth (enough for man to know)
"Virtue alone is happiness below.".
The only point where human bliss stands till,
And taftes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only Merit conflant pay receives,
Is bleft in what it takes, and what it gives
The joy unequall'd, if its end it gain,
And if it lofe, attended with no pain:
Without fatiety, tho' e'er fo blefs'd,
And but more relifh'd as the more diftrefs'd;.
The broadeft mirth unfeeling folly wears,
Lefs pleafing 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 opprefs'd;
Never dejected, while another's bless'd;
And where no wants no wishes can remain,
Since but to with more Virtue, is to gain.
|