Contentment is a sleepy thing,
If it in death alone must die;
A quiet mind is worse than poverty
Unless it from enjoyment spring!
That's blessedness alone that makes a king
Wherein the joys and treasures are so great
They all the powers of the soul employ,
And fill it with a work complete,
While it doth all enjoy.
True joys alone contentment do inspire,
Enrich content, and make our courage higher.
Content alone's a dead and silent stone:
The real life of bliss
Is glory reigning in a throne,
Where all enjoyment is.
The soul of man is so inclined to see,
Without his treasures no man's soul can be,
Nor rest content uncrowned!
Desire and love
Must in the height of all their rapture move,
Where there is true felicity.
Employment is the very life and ground
Of Life itself, whose pleasant motion is
The form of Bliss;
All blessedness a life with glory crowned.
Life! life is all: in its most full extent
Stretched out to all things, and with all content!