ODE TO HAPPINESS.
Tho’ all men aim at happiness,
And some their boasted schemes profess,
Yet few, alas! too few we find,
Take the right course, by nature blind.
Th’ ambitious man directs his way
Thro’ title, honours, night and day:
The miser hovers o’er his gold,
With heaps on heaps, each farthing told:
But sooner or later they’ll perceive,
These trifling things the mind bereave
Of ev’ry solid, dear delight,
The soul o’erspread with gloom of night;
That envied titles, honours, fame,
Are but a sounding, empty name:
That riches fly on wings away;
The brightest name will soon decay:
| Yet riches ne’er will satisfy, Tho’ e’er so certain, still they cloy The dupe, that on them doth rely. |
Still surer doth the sensualist
His pleasures, and his good resist;
With loss of health, misfortunes rues
The man, who sensual paths pursues:
For pleasures dissipate the mind,
Bring on diseases, death unkind;
Ruin his fortune, robs his soul
Of all true joy, without controul.
The philosophic sage also,
Unless the fear of God he know,
| Unless his Maker’s works he scan, Is but a poor bewilder’d man; Much knowledge will more sorrows gain. |
But he who would true pleasure find,
Delight of a superior kind,
Must firmly virtue’s steps pursue,
To worldly folly bid adieu;
Dispos’d, all heav’n’s decrees to meet
With fortitude, or harsh, or sweet;
If fortune blows in prosp’rous gales,
Or adverse wind his skiff assails,
Still he is happy, pleas’d, content,
With what kind heav’n, not him hath sent;
| Nor pines with grief, himself alone Bears all the shock of fortune’s frown, Untouch’d, resign’d, God’s will his own: |
In patience tastes a greater joy,
Than all the world’s variety.
Religion doth a good afford,
To all, with gladsome pleasure stor’d,
| Such as the world to give in vain May boast for all its pleasures pain, Compar’d with virtue’s smiling train, |
Of joy refin’d, of peace and health,
The greatest good, the best of wealth.
For there’s that sweetness, and that peace
In virtue’s blessed, wholesome ways,
Which no disaster can defeat,
Its transports so divinely great.
Who would not then this course pursue,
Which only leads to bliss, and pleasures ever new?
NEW-YORK: Printed by THOMAS BURLING, Jun. No. 115, Cherry-street—where Subscriptions for this Magazine (at 6s. per quarter) will be gratefully received—And at No. 33, Oliver-Street.
UTILE DULCI. | ||
The New-York Weekly Magazine;OR, MISCELLANEOUS REPOSITORY. | ||
| Vol. II.] | WEDNESDAY, February 8, 1797. | [No. 84. |
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.