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There's not a blessing individuals find,

But some way leans and hearkens to the kind;
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.
Order is Heaven's first law; and this confest,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest,
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.
Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,

If all are equal in their happiness:

But mutual wants this happiness increase;

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All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king,

In who obtain defence, or who defend,

In him who is, or him who finds a friend:

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Heaven breathes through every member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common soul;
But Fortune's gifts if each alike possest,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
If then to all men happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place content.

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Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, And these be happy call'd, unhappy those; But Heaven's just balance equal will appear, While those are placed in hope, and these in fear: 70

Not present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better or of worse.

O sons of Earth! attempt ye still to rise,

By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys, 75
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
Know, all the good that individuals find,
Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.

POPE.

ELEGY.

TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY.

WHAT beckoning ghost, along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
"T is she!—But why that bleeding bosom gored?
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
O ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,

Is it, in Heaven, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?

Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye powers! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods:
Thence to their images on earth it flows,

And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.

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Most souls, 't is true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen prisoners in the body's cage;
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
And, close confined to their own palace, sleep.
From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die,)
Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,

And separate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou mean deserter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of Death;
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thus, if eternal Justice rules the ball,

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Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall:
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates;
There passengers shall stand, and pointing say,
(While the long funerals blacken all the way,)
"Lo! these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield."
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,

The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!

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So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow 45
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.
What can atone, O ever-injured shade!
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?

No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier. 50
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances and the public show;
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face;

What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb;
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy relics made.

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So peaceful rest, without a stone, a name, What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame. 70 How loved, how honour'd once, avails thee not,

To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee,

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Poets themselves must fall like those they sung, 75 Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. Ev'n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays; Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart, 80

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122 PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN VINDICATED.

Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more!

POPE.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF

MAN VINDICATED.

HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know;
Or who could suffer Being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
O, blindness to the future! kindly given,

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That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven; 10 Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; 15 Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always TO BE blest. The soul, uneasy and confined, from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor❜d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

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