O Happiness! our being's end and aim! 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, O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool, and wise. Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below, Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow? Fair opening to some court's propitious shine, Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine? 10 Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field? Where grows?--where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil: Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere, Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere; 'Tis never to be bought, but always free, And, fled from monarchs, St John! dwells with thee. I. 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, some in ease, Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment these; Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain; Some, swell'd to gods, confess even virtue vain; Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall, To trust in every thing, or doubt of all. Who thus define it, say they more or less Than this, that happiness is happiness? II. Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; 30 Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well; And, mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense, and common ease. Remember, Man, 'The Universal Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws;' And makes what happiness we justly call Subsist, not in the good of one, but all. There's not a blessing individuals find, But some way leans and hearkens to the kind: 40 No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride, No cavern'd 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, 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.