Conduct it to the sacred plains
Where happiness terrestrial reigns.
"Tis Discontent alone destroys
The harvest of our ripening joys;
Resolve to be exempt from woe,
Your resolution keeps you so.
Whate'er is needful man receives,
Nay more superfluous Nature gives,
Indulgent parent, source of bliss,
Profuse of goodness to excess!
For thee 'tis, man, the zephyr blows,
For thee the purple vintage flows,
Each flower its various hue displays,
The lark exalts her vernal lays,
To view yon azure vault is thine,
And my Eudocia's form divine.
Hark! how the renovating spring
Invites the feather'd choir to sing,
Spontaneous mirth and rapture glow
On every shrub and every bough;
Their little airs a lesson give,
They teach us mortals how to live,
And well advise us, whilst we can,
To spend in joy the vital span.
Ye gay and youthful, all advance
Together knit in festive dance,
See blooming Hebe leads the way,
For youth is Nature's holiday.
If dire Misfortune should employ
Her dart to wound the timely joy,
Solicit Bacchus with your prayer,
No earthly goblin dares come near,
Care puts an easier aspect on,
Pale Anger smooths her threatening frown,
Mirth comes in Melancholy's stead,
And Discontent conceals her head.
The thoughts on vagrant pinions fly,
And mount exulting to the sky;
Thence with enraptured views look down
On golden empires all their own.
Or let, when Fancy spreads her sails,
Love waft you on with easier gales,
Where in the soul-bewitching groves,
Euphrosyne, sweet goddess, roves;
'Tis rapture all, 'tis ecstasy!
An earthly immortality!
This all the ancient bards employ'd,
"Twas all the ancient gods enjoy'd,
Who often from the realms above
Came down on earth to' indulge in love.
Still there's one greater bliss in store,
'Tis virtuous friendship's social hour,
When goodness from the heart sincere
Pours forth Compassion's balmy tear,
For from those tears such transports flow,
As none but friends and angels know.
Bless'd state! where every thing conspires
To fill the breast with heavenly fires!
Where for a while the soul must roam,
To preconceive the state to come,
And when through life the journey's pass'd,
Without repining or distaste,
Again the spirit will repair
To breathe a more celestial air,
And reap, where blessed beings glow,
Completion of the joys below.
Terpsichore; or, The Moderate.
διδε δ' αγαθον τε κακον τε.
Hæc satis est orare Jovem, qui donat et aufert;
Det vitam, det opes; æquum mî animum ipse parabo. HOR. lib. i. ep. 18.
DESCEND, Astræa, from above,
Where Jove's celestial daughters rove,
And deign once more to bring with thee
Thy earth-deserting family,
Calm Temperance, and Patience mild,
Sweet Contemplation's heavenly child,
Reflection firm, and Fancy free,
Religion pure, and Probity,
Whilst all the Heliconian throng
Shall join Terpsichore in song.
Ere man, great Reason's lord, was made,
Or the world's first foundations laid,
As high in their divine abodes
Consulting sat the mighty gods,
Jove on the chaos looking down,
Spoke thus from his imperial throne-
Ye deities and potentates,
Aerial powers, and heavenly states,
Lo, in that gloomy place below,
Where darkness reigns and discord now,
There a new world shall grace
And a new creature form'd arise,
Who shall partake of our perfections,
And live and act by our directions
(For the chief bliss of any station
Is nought without communication),
Let therefore every godhead give
What this new being should receive;
But care important must be had
To mingle well of good and bad,
That, by the' allaying mixture, he
May not approach to deity.'
The sovereign spake, the gods agree,
And each began in his degree:
Behind the throne of Jove there stood
Two vessels of celestial wood,
Containing just two equal measures;
One fill'd with pain, and one with pleasures;
The gods drew out from both of these,
And mix'd them with their essences
(Which essences are heavenly still,
When undisturb'd by natural ill,
And man to moral good is prone,
Let but the moral powers alone,
And not pervert them by tuition,
Or conjure them by superstition),
Hence man partakes an equal share
Of pleasing thoughts and gloomy care,
And Pain and Pleasure e'er shall be,
As Plato' says, in company.
Receive the one, and soon the other
Will follow to rejoin his brother.
Those who with pious pain pursue
Calm Virtue by her sacred clue,
Will surely find the mental treasure `
Of Virtue, only real pleasure:
Follow the pleasurable road,
That fatal siren reckons good,
"Twill lead thee to the gloomy cell,
Where Pain and Melancholy dwell.
Health is the child of Abstinence,
Disease, of a luxurious sense;
Despair, that hellish fiend, proceeds
From loosen'd thoughts and impious deeds;
And the sweet offspring of Content
Flows from the mind's calm government.
Thus, man, thy state is free from woe,
If thou wouldst choose to make it so.
Murmur not then at Heaven's decree,
The gods have given thee liberty,
And placed within thy conscious breast,
Reason, as an unerring test,
And shouldst thou fix on misery,
The fault is not in them, but thee.
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