Searching After Happiness

Oh! happiness, thou pleasing dream, Where is thy substance found? Sought through the varying scenes in vain, Of earth's capacious round. The charms of grandeur, pomp and shew, Are nought but gilded snares; Ambition's painful steep ascent, Thick set with thorny cares. The busy town, the crowded street, Where noise and discord reign, We gladly leave, and tir'd, retreat, To breath and think again. Yet, if retirement's pleasing charms Detain the captive mind, The soft enchantment soon dissolves, 'Tis empty all as wind. Religion's sacred lamp alone, Unerring points the way, Where happiness forever shines, With unpolluted ray; To regions of eternal peace, Beyond the stormy skies, Where pure, sublime, and perfect joys, In endless prospect rise.

OH would'st thou, man! but now and then descend Into the dark recesses of thy breast, Before the seeds of baleful vice have sprung, And tak'n possession of thy easy heart; Then might'st thou think on other worlds to come, And live in solitude without a fear.

HAPPY the man! whose tranquil mind, Sees nature in her changes kind, And pleas'd the whole surveys; For him the morn benignly smiles, And evening shades reward the toils, That measure out his days. The varying year may shift the scene, The sounding tempests lash the main, And Heaven's own thunders roll; Calmly he sees the bursting storm, Tempests nor thunder can deform The morning of his soul.

THE industrious ant, by nature taught, With more than common prudence fraught, Lays up secure an annual store, (It's little date, perhaps no more:) Would man (who Lord of all presides, Alone whom reason's influence guides, Whom Heav'n, in mercy unconfin'd, For nobler purposes design'd) Thus hoard against that common state We all must prove, or soon or late; How calm might he resign his breath, And smiling, meet the arm of death! With joy his soul to Heav'n commend, And fearless, wait his latter end.

NOT all the gifts of wealth, the pomp of state, The gilded palace, or the envied throne, Deserve the real tribute of applause. Praise rather those who steadily pursue The precepts of humility, who hear The voice of cooler reason, nor desire More than their flocks, and herds, the tufted cell, Or moss-grown cottage, the abode of peace: They steer securely down life's placid stream, Rich in themselves, and crown'd with length of days.