Nor God alone in the still calm we find,
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. 110
Passions, like elements, tho' born to fight,
Yet, mix'd and soften'd, 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 colour of our life.
Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes;
And when, in act, they cease, in
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 the rest.
As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death;
After ver. 112 in the MS.
The soft reward the virtuous, or invite ;
The fierce, the vicious punish or affright.
The young disease, that must subdue at length, 135 Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength:
So, cast and mingl'd with his very frame,
The mind's disease, its RULING PASSION, came;
Each vital humour which should feed 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 dang'rous 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 pow'r;
As heav'n's blest beam turns vinegar more sour.
We, wretched subjects, tho' to lawful sway,
In this weak queen, some fav'rite still obey:
Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules,
What can she more than 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 humours 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 her's to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this passion more ás friend than foe:
A mightier pow'r 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 pow'r or knowledge, gold or glory, please;
Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease;
Through life 'tis follow'd, even at life's expence ;
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 vigour working at the root.
What crops of wit and honesty appear
From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal and fortitude supply;
Ev'n avarice, prudence; sloth, philosophy;
Lust, through some 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) 195
The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd:
Reason the bias turns from good to ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine :
The same ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.
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 to some mysterious use;
After ver. 194 in the MS.
How oft, with passion, virtue points her charms!
Then shines the hero, then the patriot warms.
Peleus' great son, or Brutus, who had known,
Had Lucrece been a whore, or Helen none!
But virtues opposite to make agree,
That, reason! is thy task; and worthy thee.
Hard task, cries Bibulus, and reason weak.
-Make it a point, dear Marquess! or a pique.
Once, for a whim, persuade yourself to pay
A debt to reason, like a debt at play.
For right or wrong have mortals suffer'd more?
B- - for his prince, or for his whore?
Whose self-denials nature must controul?
His, who would save a sixpence, or his soul?
Web for his health, a Chartreux for his siu,
Contend they not which soonest shall grow thin?
What we resolve, we can: but here's the fault,
We ne'er resolve to do the thing we ought.
Tho' each by turns the other's bound 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.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
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, Sembla, or the Lord knows where.
No creature owns it in the first degree,
But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he ;
Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone,
'Or never feel the rage, or never own;
After ver. 220 in the first Edition, followed these:
A cheat! a whore! who starts not at the name,
In all the inns of court or Drury-lane?
After ver. 226 in the MS.
The col'nel swears the agent is a dog,
The scriv'ner vows th' attorney is a rogue.
Against the thief, th' attorney loud inveighs,
For whose ten pound the county twenty pays.
The thief damns judges, and the knaves of state;
And dying, mourns small villains hang'd by great.
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