Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed What's fame? a fancied life in other's breath, Just what you hear you have; and what's unknown, The same (my lord) if Tully's, or your own. All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes or friends; Alike or when or where they shone or shine, A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod; An honest man's the noblest work of God. Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels In parts superior what advantage lies? Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land; Above life's weakness, and its comforts too. 240 250 260 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 280 290 From ancient story learn to scorn them all. O wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame E'er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame! 300 The trophied arches, storied halls invade, A tale that blends their glory with their shame! Know then this truth, (enough for man to know,) 'Virtue alone is happiness below.' 310 The only point where human bliss stands still, And if it lose, attended with no pain: 320 Good, from each object, from each place acquired, Never elated, while one man's oppress'd; 330 See the sole bliss Heaven 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 untaught will find ; Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through nature up to nature's God; 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, But touches some above, and some below; Learns from the 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. 340 For him alone hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still, and opens on his soul; Till lengthen'd on to faith, and unconfined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind. He sees why nature plants in man alone, Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown : (Nature, whose dictates to no other kind Are given in vain, but what they seek they find) Wise is her present; she connects in this Self love thus push'd to social, to divine, Grasp the whole world of reason, life, and sense, 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; The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads; Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace; His country next, and next all human race: Wide and more wide, the o'erflowings of the mind Take every creature in, of every kind: Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty bless'd, And Heaven beholds its image in his breast. 370 Come then, my friend! my genius! come along; O master of the poet, and the song! 380 And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, 390 When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. DEO OPT. MAX. It may be proper to observe, that some passages in the preceding Essay having been unjustly suspected of a tendency towards fate and naturalism, the author composed this prayer as the sum of all, to show that his system was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: that the First Cause was as well the Lord and Governor of the universe as the Creator of it; and that, by submission to his will (the great principle enforced throughout the Essay) was not meant the suffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination, but a resting in a religious acquiescence, and confidence full of hope and immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the poet chose for his model the Lord's Prayer, which, of all others, best deserves the title prefixed to this paraphrase. FATHER of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, |