eds, the best of friends?
For friend, or happy life, who looks not higher,
Of neither shall he find the shadow here.
The world's sworn advocate, without a fee,
Lorenzo smartly, with a smile, replies:
"Thus far thy song is right; and all must own, 400
Virtue has her peculiar set of pains.--
And joys peculiar who to Vice denies?
If vice it is, with nature to comply:
If Pride, and Sense, are so predominant,
To check, not overcome, them, makes a saint.
Can Nature in a plainer voice proclaim
Pleasure, and glory, the chief good of man?"
Can Pride, and Sensuality, rejoice?
From purity of thought, all pleasure springs;
And, from an humble spirit, all our peace. 410
Ambition, pleasure! let us talk of these:
Of these, the Porch, and Academy, talk'd;
Of these, each following age had much to say:
Yet, unexhausted, still, the needful theme.
Who talks of these, to mankind all at once
He talks; for where the saint from either free?
Are these thy refuge?--No: these rush upon thee;
Thy vitals seize, and, vulture-like, devour;
I'll try, if I can pluck thee from thy rock,
Prometheus! from this barren ball of earth; 420
If Reason can unchain thee, thou art free.
And, first, thy Caucasus, Ambition, calls;
Mountain of torments! eminence of woes!
Of courted woes! and courted through mistake!
'Tis not ambition charms thee; 'tis a cheat 425
Will make thee start, as H---- at his moor.
Dost grasp at greatness? First, know what it is:
Think'st thou thy greatness in distinction lies?
Not in the feather, wave it e'er so high,
By Fortune stuck, to mark us from the throng,
Is glory lodged: 'tis lodged in the reverse;
In that which joins, in that which equals, all, 432
The monarch and his slave;--"A deathless soul,
Unbounded prospect, and immortal kin,
A Father God, and brothers in the skies;"
Elder, indeed, in time; but less remote
In excellence, perhaps, than thought by man;
Why greater what can fall, than what can rise?
If still delirious, now, Lorenzo! go;
And with thy full-blown brothers of the world, 440
Throw scorn around thee; cast it on thy slaves;
Thy slaves, and equals: how scorn cast on them
Rebounds on thee! If man is mean, as man,
Art thou a god? If Fortune makes him so,
Beware the consequence