h,
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 w