call up all its strength by such a charm.
Pleasure, first, succours Virtue; in return,
Virtue gives Pleasure an eternal reign.
What, but the pleasure of food, friendship, faith,
Supports life natural, civil, and divine?
'Tis from the pleasure of repast, we live;
'Tis from the pleasure of applause, we please; 650
'Tis from the pleasure of belief, we pray
(All prayer would cease, if unbelieved the prize):
It serves ourselves, our species, and our God;
And to serve more, is past the sphere of man.
Glide, then, for ever, pleasure's sacred stream!
Through Eden, as Euphrates ran, it runs,
And fosters every growth of happy life;
Makes a new Eden where it flows;--but such
As must be lost, Lorenzo! by thy fall.
"What mean I by thy fall?"--Thou'lt shortly see,
While Pleasure's nature is at large display'd; 661
Already sung her origin, and ends.
Those glorious ends, by kind, or by degree,
When Pleasure violates, 'tis then a vice,
A vengeance too; it hastens into pain.
From due refreshment, life, health, reason, joy;
From wild excess, pain, grief, distraction, death;
Heaven's justice this proclaims, and that her love.
What greater evil can I wish my foe,
Than his full draught of pleasure, from a cask 670
Unbroach'd by just authority, ungauged
By temperance, by reason unrefined?
A thousand demons lurk within the lee.
Heaven, others, and ourselves! uninjured these,
Drink deep; the deeper, then, the more divine;
Angels are angels, from indulgence there;
'Tis unrepenting pleasure makes a god.
Dost think thyself a god from other joys?
A victim rather! shortly sure to bleed.
The wrong must mourn: can Heaven's appointments fail?
Can man outwit Omnipotence? strike out 681
A self-wrought happiness unmeant by Him
Who made us, and the world we would enjoy?
Who forms an instrument, ordains from whence
Its dissonance, or harmony, shall rise.
Heaven bid the soul this mortal frame inspire!
Bid virtue's ray divine inspire the soul
With unprecarious flows of vital joy;
And, without breathing, man as well might hope
For life, as, without piety, for peace. 690
"Is virtue, then, and piety the same?"--
No; piety is more; 'tis virtue's source;
Mother of every worth, as that of joy.
Men of the world this doctrine ill digest;