With all the rash dexterity of wit.
Wits, just like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the same.
Self-love and reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire:
But greedy that, its object would devour,
This, taste the honey, and not wound the flower:
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
HI. Modes of self-love the passions we may call ;
'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all:
But since not every good we can divide,
And reason bids us for our own provide;
Passions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair,
List under reason, and deserve her care:
Those that, imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name.
In lazy apathy let Stoics boast
Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost,
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest :
The rising tempest puts in act the soul,
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the chart, but passion is the gale :
Nor God alone in the still calm we find;
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.
Passions, like elements, though born to fight,
Yet mix'd and soft'ned, in his work unite:
These 'tis enough to temper and employ,
But what composes man, can man destroy?
Suffice, that reason keep to nature's road'
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.
Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train,
Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain,
These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make, and maintain, the balance of the mind:
The lights and shades, whose well accorded strife
Gives all the strength and color of our life.
Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes,
And when in act they cease, in prospect rise;
Present to grasp, and future still to find,
The whole employ of body and of mind.
All spread their charms, but charm not all alike;
On diff'rent senses, diff'rent objects strike;
Hence diff 'rent passions more or less inflame,
As strong or weak, the organs of the frame;
And hence one master passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.
As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death,
The young disease that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his
strength;
So, cast and mingled with his very frame,
The mind's disease, its ruling passion came;
Each vital humor which should feel the whole,
Soon flows to this, in body and in soul;
Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head,
As the mind opens, and its functions spread,
Imagination plies her dangerous art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part.
Nature its mother, habit is its nurse;
Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse;
Reason itself but gives it edge and power,
As heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sour;
We, wretched subjects, though to lawful sway,
In this weak queen, some fav'rites still obey:
Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules,
What can she more, then tell us we are fools?
Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend,
A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend!
Or from a judge, turn pleader, to persuade
The choice we make, or justify it made:
Proud of an easy conquest all along,
She but removes weak passions for the strong:
So, when small humors gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out.
Yes, nature's road must ever be preferr❜d; Reason is here no guide, but still a guard: "Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this passion more as friend than foe :
A mightier power the strong direction sends,
And sev'ral men impels to sev'ral ends:
Like varying winds, by other passions tost,
This drives them constant to a certain coast.
Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease:
Thro' life 'tis follow'd e'en at life's expense;
The merchant's toil, the sage's indolence,
The monk's humility, the hero's pride,
All, all alike, find reason on their side.
Th' eternal art, educing good from ill,
Grafts on this passion our best principle;
"Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd,
Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd,
The dross cements what else were too refin'd,
And in one int'rest body acts with mind.
As fruits ungrateful to the planter's care,
On savage stocks inserted, learn to bear,
The surest virtues thus from passions shoot,
Wild nature's vigor working at their root.
What crops of wit and honesty appear,
From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal, and fortitude supply ;
E'en av'rice, prudence; sloth, philosophy:
Lust, thro' certain strainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind:
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave,
Is emulation, in the learn'd or brave:
Nor virtue, male or female, can we name,
But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame.
Thus nature gives us (let it check our pride)
The virtue nearest to our vice alli'd:
Reason the bias turns to good from ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus if he will.
The fiery soul abhor'd in Cataline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine.
The same ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot, as it makes a knave.
IV. This light and darkness in our chaos join'd,
What shall divide? The God within the mind.
Extremes in nature, equal ends produce.
In man they join in some mysterious use:
Though each by turns the other's bounds invade,
As in some well wrought picture, light and shade,
And oft so mix, the diff'rence is too nice,
Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice.
Fools! Who from hence into the notion fall,
That vice or virtue there is none at all.
If white and black, blend, soften, and unite
A thousand ways, is there no black or white?
Ask your own heart; and nothing is so plain;
"Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain.
V. Vice is a monster of so frightful mein,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
But where th' extreme of vice was ne'er agreed;
Ask where's the north? at York, 'tis on the Tweed;
In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there,
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.
No creature owns it in the first degree,
But thinks his neighbor farther gone than he.
E'en those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natures shrink at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.
Virtuous and vicious every man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree;
The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise,
And e'en the best, by fits what they despise.
'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill,
For, vice or virtue, SELF directs it still;
Each individual seeks a sev'ral goal:
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