Enquiry After Happiness
Though happiness be each man's darling aim,
Yet folly too, too often plays the game;
To that one centre all our wishes tend,
We fly the means yet still pursue the end.
No wonder then we find our hopes were vain;
The wretch who shuns his cure must still complain.
In labyrinths of crooked error lost,
Or on life's sea with raging tempest tossed,
We by no compass steer, but blindly stray,
And, knowing we are wrong, ne'er ask the way.
'How hard, how very hard to walk', they cry,
'In thorny roads while flowery meads are nigh!'
But know, deluded mortals, virtue's race
Is run in paths of pleasantness and peace;
Though narrow, yet sufficient for the few
Who have this pearl of price alone in view.
'But how', they ask, 'can we this gem obtain?'
Be that thy task, O Lucas, to explain.
As Milton, eyeless bard, has sweetly sung
The fatal course whence all our woes first sprung,
So he has taught, though not in measured phrase,
A lesson which deserves full greater praise;
How man (as once in Eden) may be blest,
And paradise be found in every breast.
O! may you find it there, may you obtain
The bliss which too much knowledge rendered vain,
By tasting boldly the fair fruit again.
Lucas like Milton, wondrous bard, was blind,
Like Milton too, illumined was his mind:
Then ask thy Guide, for he who seeks shall find.