O Happiness! our being's end and aim,[1404] 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, 5 O'erlooked, seen double by the fool and wise:[1405] Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below,[1406] Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?[1407] Fair op'ning to some court's propitious shine,[1408] Or deep with diamonds in the flaming[1409] mine? 10 Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, Or reaped in iron harvests of the field?[1410] Where grows!--where grows it not?[1411] If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:[1412] Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere,[1413] 15 'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where: 'Tis never to be bought, but always free; And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.[1414] 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,[1415] some in ease,[1416] Those call it pleasure, and contentment these; Some sunk to beasts find pleasure end in pain;[1417] Some swelled to gods confess e'en virtue vain;[1418] Or indolent, to each extreme they fall, 25 To trust in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.[1419] Who thus define it, say they more or less Than this, that happiness is happiness?[1420] [Sidenote: Happiness is the end of all men, and attainable by all.] Take nature's path,[1421] and mad opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; 30 Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;[1422] There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;[1423] And mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense,[1424] and common ease.[1425] [Sidenote: God governs by general not particular laws; intends happiness to be equal, and to be so it must be social, since all particular happiness depends on general.] Remember, man, "the Universal Cause 35 Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;" And makes what happiness we justly call,[1426] Subsist, not in the good of one, but all. There's not a blessing individuals find, But some way leans and hearkens[1427] to the kind;[1428] 40 No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride, No caverned 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, 45 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.[1429]