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Do virtue, happiness, and heaven convey; For virtue is the child of liberty,

And happiness of virtue; nor can they

Be free to keep the path, who are not free to stray.

"Yet leave me not. I would allay that grief Which else might thy young virtue overpower, And in thy converse I shall find relief,

When the dark shades of melancholy lower; For solitude has many a dreary hour,

E'en when exempt from grief, remorse, and pain : Come often, then, for, haply, in my bower,

Amusement, knowledge, wisdom, thou mayst gain ;

If I one soul improve, I have not lived in vain."

And now, at length, to Edwin's ardent gaze,
The Muse of History unrolls her page;

But few, alas! the scenes her art displays,

To charm his fancy, or his heart engage.

Here chiefs their thirst of power in blood assuage,

And straight their flames with tenfold fierceness burn; Here smiling virtue prompts the patriot's rage,

But lo! ere long is left alone to mourn,

And languish in the dust, and clasp the abandoned urn!

Enraptured by the hermit's strain, the youth
Proceeds the path of science to explore;
And now, expanded to the beams of truth,
New energies and charms, unknown before,
His mind discloses. Fancy now no more

Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies;
But, fixed in aim, and conscious of her power,
Aloft from cause to cause exults to rise,
Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies.

LESSON CXVI.

True Happiness. POPE.

KNOW then this truth, (enough for man to know,)
"Virtue alone is happiness below; "

The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives;
The joy unequalled, if its end it gain,
And if it lose, attended with no pain:
Without satiety, though e'er so blessed,
And but more relished as the more distressed.
The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears

Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears:
Good, from each object, from each place acquired,
Forever exercised, yet never tired;

Never elated, while one man's oppressed;

Never dejected, while another's blest;

And where no wants, no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue is to gain.

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 the immense design,
Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine;
Sees that no being any bliss can know,
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.

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.
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
His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss;
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 neighbor's blessing thine:
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part;

Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense,
In one close system of benevolence:

Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree ;
And height of bliss but height of charity.

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, neighbor, 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 blessed, And heaven beholds its image in his breast.

LESSON CXVII.

The Virtuous Man. YOUNG.

SOME angel guide my pencil, while I draw-
What nothing less than angel can exceed
A man on earth devoted to the skies;
Like ships in seas, while in, above the world.
With aspect mild, and elevated eye,

Behold him seated on a mount serene,

Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm:
All the black cares and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders breaking at his feet,
Excite his pity, not impair his peace.

Earth's genuine sons, the sceptred and the slave,
A mingled mob! a wandering herd! he sees,
Bewildered in the vale: in all unlike !
His full reverse in all! what higher praise?
What stronger demonstration of the right?

The present all their care, the future his.
When public welfare calls, or private want,
They give to Fame; his bounty he conceals.
Their virtues varnish Nature, his exalt.
Mankind's esteem they court, and he his own.
Theirs the wild chase of false felicities;
His the composed possession of the true.
Alike throughout is his consistent peace,

All of one color and an even thread;
While party-colored shreds of happiness,
With hideous gaps between, patch up for them
A madman's robe; each puff of Fortune blows
The tatters by, and shows their nakedness.

:

He sees with other eyes than theirs where they
Behold a sun, he spied a Deity.

What makes them only smile, makes him adore.
Where they see mountains, he but atoms sees;
An empire, in his balance, weighs a grain.
They things terrestrial worship as divine;
His hopes immortal blow them by as dust,
That dims his sight, and shortens his survey,
Which longs in infinite to lose all bound.
Titles and honors (if they prove his fate)
He lays aside to find his dignity;
No dignity they find in aught besides.
They triumph in externals, (which conceal
Man's real glory,) proud of an eclipse;
Himself too much he prizes to be proud,
And nothing thinks so great in man as man.
Too dear he holds his interest to neglect
Another's welfare, or his right invade ;
Their interest, like a lion, lives on prey.
They kindle at the shadow of a wrong;
Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heaven,
Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe.

Nought but what wounds his virtue wounds his peace
A covered heart their character defends;

A covered heart denies him half his praise.
Their no-joys end where his full feast begins:
His joys create, theirs murder, future bliss.
To triumph in existence, his alone;
And his alone, triumphantly to think

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