And love o'erflowing makes an angel here,
Such angels all entitled to repose

On him who governs fate. Tho' tempest frowns,
Tho' nature shakes, how soft to lean on heav'n;
To lean on him on whom archangels lean!
With inward eyes, and silent as the grave,
They stand collecting ev'ry 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 compos'd 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 rapt'rous exultation, swelling high,
Which, like land-floods, impetuous pour awhile,
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 tenure, not a start.
Bliss there is none but unprecarious bliss:
That is the gem; sell all, and purchase that.
Why go a-begging to contingencies,

Not gain'd with ease, nor safely lov'd, if gain'd?
At good fortuitous draw back, and pause;
Suspect it; what thou canst ensure, enjoy!
And nought but what thou giv'st thyself is sure.
Reason perpetuates joy that Reason gives,
And makes it as immortal as herself:

To mortals nought immortal but their worth.

Worth, conscious Worth! should absolutely reign,
And other joys ask leave for their approach,
Nor, unexamin'd, ever leave obtain.

Thou art all anarchy; a mob of joys
Wage war, and perish in intestine broils

Not the least promise of internal peace!
No bosom-comfort! or unborrow'd bliss!

Thy thoughts are vagabonds; all outward-bound 'Mid sands, and rocks, and storms, to cruize for pleasure;

If gain'd, dear-bought; and better miss'd than gain'd. Much pain must expiate what much pain procur❜d. Fancy and sense, from an infected shore,

Thy cargo bring, and pestilence the prize.

Then such thy thirst, (insatiable thirst
By fond indulgence but inflam'd the more)
Fancy still cruizes, when poor Sense is tir'd.
Imagination is the Paphian shop

Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame,
Bids foul ideas, in their dark recess,

And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires)
With wanton art those fatal arrows form,

Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame.
Wouldst thou receive them, other thoughts there are

On angel-wing, descending from above,

Which these, with art divine, would counterwork, And form celestial armour for thy peace.

In this is seen imagination's guilt;

But who can count her follies? she betrays thee,
To think in grandeur there is something great.
For works of curious art, and ancient fame,
Thy genius hungers, elegantly pain'd,

And foreign climes must cater for thy taste.
Hence what disaster!-tho' the price was paid,
That persecuting priest, the Turk of Rome,
Whose foot, (ye Gods!) tho' cloven, must be kiss'd,
Detain'd thy dinner on the Latian shore;
(Such is the fate of honest Protestants!)
And poor Magnificence is starv'd to death.
Hence just resentment, indignation, ire !—
Be pacify'd; if outward things are great,

'Tis magnanimity great things to scorn;
Pompous expences, and parades august,
And courts, that insalubrious soil to peace.
True happiness ne'er enter'd at an eye;
True happiness resides in things unseen.
No smiles of Fortune ever bless'd the bad,
Nor can her frowns rob innocence of joys;
That jewel wanting, triple crowns are poor:
So tell his Holiness, and be reveng❜d.

Pleasure, we both agree, is man's chief good;
Our only contest what deserves the name.

Give Pleasure's name to nought but what has pass'd
Th' authentic seal of Reason (which, like Yorke,
Demurs on what it passes) and defies

The tooth of Time; when past a pleasure still;
Dearer on trial, lovelier for its age,

And doubly to be priz'd, as it promotes

Our future, while it forms our present joy.

Some joys the future overcast, and some

Throw all their beams that way, and gild the tomb
Some joys endear eternity, some give
Abhorr'd Annihilation dreadful charms.
Are rival joys contending for our choice?
Consult thy own existence, and be safe;
That oracle will put all doubt to flight.
Short is the lesson, tho' my lecture long;
Be good-and let heaven answer for the rest.

Yet, with a sigh o'er all mankind, I grant,
In this our day of proof, our land of hope,
The good man has his clouds that intervene ;
Clouds that obscure his sublunary day,
But never conquer: ev'n the best must own,
Patience and resignation are the pillars
Of human peace on earth: the pillars these,
But those of Seth not more remote from thee,
Till this heroic lesson thou hast learn'd,
To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.
Fir'd at the prospect of unclouded bliss,
Heaven in reversion, like the sun, as yet
Beneath th' horizon, cheers us in this world;
It sheds, on souls susceptible of light,
The glorious dawn of our eternal day.

"This (says Lorenzo) is a fair harangue; "But can harangues blow back strong Nature's ❝ stream,

"Or stem the tide heaven pushes thro' our veins, "Which sweeps away man's impotent resolves, "And lays his labour level with the world?”

Themselves men make their comment on mankind,

And think nought is but what they find at home:
Thus weakness to chimera turns the truth.
Nothing romantic has the Muse prescrib'd;
Above*, Lorenzo saw the man of earth,

* In a former Night.