And the vast void beyond, applause resounds. What then am I?-- Amidst applauding worlds, And worlds celestial, is there found on earth, A peevish, dissonant, rebellious string, 370 Which jars in the grand chorus, and complains? Censure on thee, Lorenzo! I suspend, And turn it on myself; how greatly due! All, all is right; by God ordain'd or done; And who, but God, resumed the friends He gave? And have I been complaining, then, so long? Complaining of his favours; pain, and death? Who, without Pain's advice, would e'er be good? Who, without Death, but would be good in vain? Pain is to save from pain; all punishment, 380 To make for peace; and death, to save from Death; And second death, to guard immortal life; To rouse the careless, the presumptuous awe, And turn the tide of souls another way; By the same tenderness divine ordain'd, That planted Eden, and high bloom'd for man, A fairer Eden, endless, in the skies. Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene; Resumes them, to prepare us for the next. All evils natural are moral goods; 390 All discipline, indulgence, on the whole. None are unhappy: all have cause to smile, But such as to themselves that cause deny. 393 Our faults are at the bottom of our pains; Error, in act, or judgment, is the source Of endless sighs: we sin, or we mistake; And Nature tax, when false opinion stings. Let impious grief be banish'd, joy indulged; But chiefly then, when Grief puts in her claim. Joy from the joyous, frequently betrays, 400 Oft lives in vanity, and dies in woe. Joy, amidst ills, corroborates, exalts; 'Tis joy and conquest; joy, and virtue too. A noble fortitude in ills, delights Heaven, earth, ourselves; 'tis duty, glory, peace. Affliction is the good man's shining scene; Prosperity conceals his brightest ray; As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man. Heroes in battle, pilots in the storm, And virtue in calamities, admire. 410 The crown of manhood is a winter-joy; An evergreen, that stands the northern blast, And blossoms in the rigour of our fate. 'Tis a prime part of happiness, to know How much unhappiness must prove our lot; A part which few possess! I'll pay life's tax, Without one rebel murmur, from this hour, Nor think it misery to be a man; Who thinks it is, shall never be a god. Some ills we wish for, when we wish to live. 420 What spoke proud Passion?--"Wish my being lost?"[53] Presumptuous! blasphemous! absurd! and false! The triumph of my soul is,--that I am; And therefore that I may be--what? Lorenzo! Look inward, and look deep; and deeper still; Unfathomably deep our treasure runs 426