Pain is to save from pain; all punishment,

To make for peace.

*

Heav'n gives us friends to bless the present scene; Resumes them, to prepare us for the next.

None are unhappy; all have cause to smile,
But such as to themselves that cause deny.
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. p. 286.

Affliction is the good man's shining scene;

Prosperity conceals his brightest ray;

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.

p. 287.

For all I bless thee; most for the severe.

p. 289.

The rough and gloomy, challenges our praise.

The winter is as needful as the spring;
The thunder, as the sun; a stagnate mass
Of vapours breeds a pestilential air:
Nor more propitious the Favonian breeze
To nature's health, than purifying storms;
The dread volcano ministers to good.

*

Man is responsible for ills receiv'd ;
Those we call wretched, are a chosen band,

Compell'd to refuge in the right, for peace.

Amid my list of blessings infinite,

Stand this the foremost, "That my heart has bled."
'Tis heav'ns last effort of good-will to man;
When pain can't bless, heav'n quits us in despair.
Who fails to grieve, when just occasion calls,
Or grieves too much, deserves not to be blest ;
Inhuman, or effeminate, his heart;

Reason absolves the grief, which reason ends.
May heav'n ne'er trust my friend with happiness,
"Till it has taught him how to bear it well,

By previous pain; and made it safe to smile!
Such smiles are mine, and such may they remain ;
Nor hazard their extinction, from excess.

P. 290.

Thus the three virtues, least alive on earth,
And welcom❜d on heav'n's coast with most applause,
An humble, pure, and heav'nly-minded heart. p. 297.

Canst thou descend from converse with the skies, And seize thy brother's throat? For what? a clod? An inch of earth? the planets cry, "Forbear." They chase our double darkness, nature's gloom, And (kinder still!) our intellectual night. p. 298.

An undevout astronomer is mad.

p. 300.

A good man seen, though silent council gives:
The touch'd spectator wishes to be wise.

"Bad to be suffer'd; blessings to be left :"

p. 305.

Earth's richest inventory boasts no more.

Teach me my days to number, and apply
My trembling heart to wisdom; now beyond
All shadow of excuse for fooling on.

p. 315.

Age smoothes our path to prudence; sweeps aside
The snares, keen appetite, and passion, spread
To catch stray souls; and woe to that grey head,
Whose folly would undo, what age has done! p. 318.

Some wish they did; but no man disbelieves. p. 322.

As the chas'd hart, amid the desert waste,
Pants for the living stream; for HIM who made her,
So pants the thirsty soul, amid the blank

Of sublunary joys.

p. 331.

Who worship God, shall find him. Humble love,
And not proud reason, keeps the door of heav'n.
Love finds admission, where proud science fails.
Man's science is the culture of his heart.

The great Proprietor's all-bounteous hand

p. 337.

Leaves nothing waste; but sows these fiery fields

With seeds of reason, which to virtues rise

Beneath his genial ray; and if escap'd

The pestilential blasts of stubborn will,

When grown mature are gather'd for the skies. p. 338.

Nature delights in progress; in advance

From worse to better; but, when minds ascend,
Progress, in part, depends upon themselves.
Heav'n aids exertion; greater makes the great;
The voluntary little lessens more.

Bent on destruction !.and in love with death!
Not all these luminaries, quench'd at once,
Were half so sad, as one benighted mind,
Which gropes for happiness, and meets despair.

p. 340.

Why then persist? No mortal ever liv'd
But, dying, he pronounc'd (when words are true!)
Thee whole that charms thee, absolutely vain. p. 341.

For I have peep'd into thy cover'd heart,
And seen it blush beneath a boastful brow;
For, by strong guilt's most violent assault,
Conscience is but disabled, not destroy'd.

Example strikes

All human hearts; a bad example more;

p. 344.

More still a father's; that ensures his ruin. p. 346.

Sleep's dewy wand

Has strok'd my drooping lids, and promises

(If my fond wishes are not flatterers)

My long arrear of rest.

Haste, naste, sweet stranger! from the peasant's cot, The ship-boy's hammock, or the soldier's straw,

Whence sorrow never chas'd thee; with thee bring,
Not hideous visions, as of late; but draughts
Delicious of well-tasted, cordial, rest;
Man's rich restorative; his balmy bath,
That supples, lubricates, and keeps in play,
The various movements of this nice machine,
Which asks such frequent periods of repair.
When tir'd with vain rotations of the day,
Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn;
Fresh we spin on, till sickness clogs our wheels,
Or death quite breaks the spring, and motion ends.
When will it end with me?

In thy displeasure dwells eternal pain;

p. 347.

Pain, our aversion; pain which strikes me now;
And, since all pain is terrible to man,

Though transient, terrible; at thy good hour,
Gently, ah gently, lay me in my bed,
My clay cold bed! by nature, now so near;
By nature, near; still nearer by disease!
Till then, be this an emblem of my grave:
Let it out-preach the preacher; ev'ry night'
Let it out-cry the boy at Philip's ear.

p. 352.

Man's sickly soul, though turn'd and toss'd for ever, From side to side, can rest on nought but thee; Here, in full trust; hereafter, in full joy.

Shall that which rises out of nought complain,
Of a few evils, paid with endless joys?

p. 353.