The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pope's Works (2 of 10) -- Poetry (2), by Alexander Pope.

O Happiness! our being's end and aim,[1404]
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, 5
O'erlooked, seen double by the fool and wise:[1405]
Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below,[1406]
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?[1407]
Fair op'ning to some court's propitious shine,[1408]
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming [1409] mine? 10
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reaped in iron harvests of the field?[1410]
Where grows!—where grows it not?[1411] If vain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:[1412]
Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere,[1413] 15
'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where:
'Tis never to be bought, but always free;
And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.[1414]
Ask of the learn'd the way! The learn'd are blind;
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind; 20
Some place the bliss in action,[1415] some in ease,[1416]
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these;
Some sunk to beasts find pleasure end in pain;[1417]
Some swelled to gods confess e'en virtue vain;[1418]
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall, 25
To trust in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.[1419]
Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?[1420]

Happiness is the end of all men, and attainable by all.

Take nature's path,[1421] and mad opinion's leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; 30
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;[1422]
There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;[1423]
And mourn our various portions as we please,
Equal is common sense,[1424] and common ease.[1425]

God governs by general not particular laws; intends happiness to be equal, and to be so it must be social, since all particular happiness depends on general.

Remember, man, "the Universal Cause 35
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;"
And makes what happiness we justly call,[1426]
Subsist, not in the good of one, but all.
There's not a blessing individuals find,
But some way leans and hearkens [1427] to the kind;[1428] 40
No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride,
No caverned 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, 45
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.[1429]

It is necessary for order, and the common peace, that external goods be unequal, therefore happiness is not constituted in these.

Order is heav'n's first law; and this confessed,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, 50
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.[1430]
Heav'n to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness:
But mutual wants this happiness increase; 55
All nature's diff'rence 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: 60
Heav'n breathes through ev'ry member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
But fortune's gifts if each alike possessed,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
If then to all men happiness was meant, 65
God in externals could not place content.[1431]

The balance of human happiness kept equal, notwithstanding externals, by hope and fear.

Fortune her gifts may variously dispose,
And these be happy called, unhappy those;
But heav'n's just balance equal will appear,
While those are placed in hope, and these in fear:[1432] 70
Not present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better, or of worse.[1433]
O sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?[1434]
Heav'n still [1435] with laughter the vain toil surveys,[1436] 75
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.[1437]

In what the happiness of individuals consists, and that the good man has the advantage even in this world.

Know, all the good that individuals find,
Or God and nature [1438] meant to mere mankind,[1439]
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.[1440] 80
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace! O virtue! peace is all thy own.[1441]
The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain;
But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.[1442]
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight, 85
Who risk the most, that [1443] take wrong means or right?
Of vice or virtue, whether blessed or cursed,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?[1444]
Count all th' advantage prosp'rous vice attains,
'Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains: 90
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want,[1445] which is to pass for good.[1446]

That no man is unhappy through virtue.

O blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy bliss to vice,[1447] to virtue woe!
Who sees and follows that great scheme the best, 95
Best knows the blessing, and will most be blessed.
But fools the good alone unhappy call,
For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just!
See god-like Turenne prostrate on the dust! 100
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife!
Was this their virtue, or contempt of life?[1448]
Say, was it virtue, more though heav'n ne'er gave,
Lamented Digby![1449] sunk thee to the grave?[1450]
Tell me, if virtue made the son expire, 105
Why, full of days and honour, lives the sire?[1451]
Why drew Marseilles' good bishop [1452] purer breath,
When nature sickened, and each gale was death?[1453]
Or why so long (in life if long can be)[1454]
Lent heav'n a parent to the poor and me?[1455] 110
What makes all physical or moral ill?
There deviates nature, and here wanders will.
God sends not ill, if rightly understood,
Or partial ill is universal good,
Or change admits, or nature lets it fall 115
Short, and but rare, till man improved it all.[1456]
We just as wisely might of heav'n complain,
That righteous Abel was destroyed by Cain,
As that the virtuous son is ill at ease
When his lewd father gave the dire disease. 120
Think we, like some weak prince, th' Eternal Cause,
Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?[1457]
Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires,[1458]
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?[1459]
On air or sea new motions be impressed,[1460] 125
O blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast?[1461]
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease if you go by?[1462]
Or some old temple nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?[1463] 130
But still this world, so fitted for the knave,
Contents us not. A better shall we have?
A kingdom of the just then let it be:[1464]
But first consider how those just agree.
The good must merit God's peculiar care; 135
But who, but God, can tell us who they are?
One thinks on Calvin heav'n's own Spirit fell;
Another deems him instrument of hell;
If Calvin feel heav'n's blessing, or its rod,
This cries there is, and that, there is no God.[1465] 140
What shocks one part will edify the rest,[1466]
Nor with one system can they all be blessed.[1467]
The very best will variously incline,[1468]
And what rewards your virtue, punish mine.
Whatever is, is right.[1469] This world, 'tis true, 145
Was made for Cæsar, but for Titus too:[1470]
And which more bless'd? who chained his country, say,
Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day?[1471]
"But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed."
What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?[1472] 150
That vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil;[1473]
The knave deserves it when he tills the soil,
The knave deserves it when he tempts the main,
Where folly fights for kings, or dives for gain.[1474]
The good man may be weak, be indolent; 155
Nor is his claim to plenty, but content.
But grant him riches, your demand is o'er?
"No—shall the good want health, the good want pow'r?"
Add health, and pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing:
"Why bounded pow'r? why private? why no king?[1475] 160
Nay, why external for internal giv'n?
Why is not man a god, and earth a heav'n?"[1476]
Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive
God gives enough while he has more to give:[1477]
Immense the pow'r, immense were the demand; 165
Say, at what part of nature will they stand?

That external goods are not the proper rewards of virtue, often inconsistent with, or destructive of it; but that all these can make no man happy without virtue. Instances in each of them.

What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy,
Is virtue's prize. A better would you fix?
Then give humility a coach and six,[1478] 170
Justice a conqu'ror's sword, or truth a gown,[1479]
Or public spirit its great cure,[1480] a crown.[1481]
Weak, foolish man! will heav'n [1482] reward us there,[1483]
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?
The boy and man an individual makes,[1484] 175
Yet sigh'st 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 such trifles are assigned,
As toys and empires, for a god-like mind: 180
Rewards, that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing:
How oft by these at sixty are undone
The virtues of a saint at twenty-one!

1. Riches.

To whom can riches give repute or trust,[1485] 185
Content, or pleasure, but the good and just?[1486]
Judges and senates have been bought for gold,
Esteem and love were never to be sold.[1487]
O fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of human kind,[1488] 190
Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.[1489]

2. Honours.

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made, 195
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;[1490]
The cobbler aproned,[1491] and the parson gowned,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.
"What differ more," you cry, "than crown and cowl?"
I'll tell you, friend; a wise man and a fool.[1492] 200
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,[1493]
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk,
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.[1494]

3. Titles.

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings,[1495] 205
That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings.[1496]

4. Birth.

Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,[1497]
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece:[1498]
But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great. 210
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,[1499]
Go! and pretend your family is young;
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? 215
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.[1500]

5. Greatness.

Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies.
"Where but among the heroes and the wise!"
Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman [1501] to the Swede; 220
The whole strange purpose of their lives to find,
Or make, an enemy of all mankind![1502]
Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,[1503]
Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose.[1504]
No less alike [1505] the politic and wise; 225
All sly slow things,[1506] with circumspective eyes:
Men in their loose unguarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wise, but others weak.
But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat,
'Tis phrase absurd [1507] to call a villain great:[1508] 230
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign,[1509] or bleed 235
Like Socrates,[1510] that man is great indeed.

6. Fame.

What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath,[1511]
A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.[1512]
Just what you hear, you have, and what's unknown
The same, my lord,[1513] if Tully's, or your own. 240
All that we feel of it begins and ends
In the small circle of our foes or friends;[1514]
To all beside as much an empty shade [1515]
An Eugene living,[1516] as a Cæsar dead;
Alike, or when or where they shone or shine, 245
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;[1517]
An honest man's [1518] the noblest work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can save,[1519]
As justice tears his body from the grave; 250
When what t' oblivion better were resigned,
Is hung on high, to poison half mankind.[1520]
All fame is foreign, but of true desert;
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart:
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs 255
Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas;
And more true joy Marcellus [1521] exiled feels,
Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.[1522]

7. Superior parts.

In parts superior [1523] what advantage lies?
Tell, for you can, what is it to be wise? 260
'Tis but to know how little can be known;[1524]
To see all others' faults, and feel our own;[1525]
Condemned in bus'ness or in arts to drudge,
Without a second or without a judge:[1526]
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? 265
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.[1527]
Painful pre-eminence![1528] yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.[1529]
Bring then these blessings to a strict account;
Make fair deductions; see to what they 'mount: 270
How much of other each is sure to cost;
How each for other oft is wholly lost;
How inconsistent greater goods with these;
How sometimes life is risked, and always ease.
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,[1530] 275
Say would'st thou be the man to whom they fall?
To sigh for ribbons if thou art so silly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy.[1531]
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.[1532] 280
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:[1533]
Or ravished with the whistling of a name,[1534]
See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame![1535]
If all, united, thy ambition call, 285
From ancient story learn to scorn them all.[1536]
There, in the rich, the honoured, famed, and great,
See the false scale of happiness complete!
In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay,
How happy those to ruin,[1537] these betray! 290
Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,[1538]
From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose;
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,[1539]
And all that raised the hero sunk the man:[1540]
Now Europe's laurel on their brows behold, 295
But stained with blood, or ill-exchanged for gold:
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease,
Or infamous for plundered provinces.[1541]
O wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame [1542]
E'er taught to shine,[1543] or sanctified from shame![1544] 300
What greater bliss attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion,[1545] or imperious wife,
The trophied arches, storied halls [1546] invade,
And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade.[1547]
Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray, 305
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,

That virtue only constitutes a happiness whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal.

"Virtue alone is happiness below."[1548] 310
The only point where human bliss stands still,[1549]
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blessed in what it takes,[1550] and what it gives;[1551]
The joy unequalled, if its end it gain,[1552] 315
And if it lose, attended with no pain:[1553]
Without satiety, though e'er so blessed,
And but more relished as the more distressed:
The broadest mirth [1554] unfeeling folly wears,
Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears:[1555] 320
Good, from each object, from each place acquired,
For ever exercised, yet never tired;[1556]
Never elated, while one man's oppressed;
Never dejected, while another's blessed;
And where no wants, no wishes can remain, 325
Since but to wish more virtue is to gain.[1557]

That the perfection of happiness consists in a conformity to the order of Providence here, and a resignation to it here and hereafter.

See the sole bliss heav'n 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,[1558] untaught, will find; 330
Slave to no sect,[1559] who takes no private road,
But looks through nature up to nature's God;[1560]
Pursues that chain which links th' immense design,
Joins heav'n and earth, and mortal and divine;
Sees, that no being any bliss can know, 335
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.[1561] 340
For him alone hope leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on his soul;
Till lengthened on to faith, and unconfined,
It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind.[1562]
He sees why nature plants in man alone 345
Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown:
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind
Are giv'n in vain,[1563] but what they seek they find;)[1564]
Wise is her present: she connects in this
His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss;[1565] 350
At once his own bright prospect to be blessed,
And strongest motive to assist the rest.
Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart? 355
Extend it, let thy enemies have part:
Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense,
In one close system of benevolence:[1566]
Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,
And height of bliss but height of charity. 360
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;[1567]
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, 365
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race;[1568]
Wide and more wide th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take ev'ry creature in, of ev'ry kind; 370
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blessed,
And heav'n beholds its image in his breast.[1569]
Come then, my friend![1570] my genius! come along,
O master of the poet and the song!
And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, 375
To man's low passions, or their glorious ends,[1571]
Teach me, like thee in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;[1572]
Formed by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe;[1573] 380
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please.[1574]
Oh! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame;
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, 385
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?[1575]
When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose,
Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,[1576]
Shall then this verse to future age pretend [1577]
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend? 390
That, urged by thee, I turned the tuneful art
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;[1578]
For wit's false mirror held up nature's light;
Showed erring pride, whatever is, is right;
That reason, passion, answer one great aim; 395
That true self-love and social are the same;
That virtue only makes our bliss below;
And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know.[1579]

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.