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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 preserve 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 softened, 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.

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Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train; Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain,

"Reason the chart." Man's intellect may be likened to the rudder of a ship; and his passions, including Combativeness, Destructiveness, Self-Esteem, Firmness, etc., the propelling powers. These are the same as steam to the engine; without them a person would be tame, timid, and inefficient. With strong propelling powers and intellect to direct, the person will accomplish something worthy of a man. The passions and the impulses need direction rather than restraint.

These mixed with art, and to due bounds confined,
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 and 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 different senses, different objects strike;
Hence different 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 no lawful sway,
In this weak queen some favorites 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 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 several men impels to several 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;
Through 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.*

The 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 interest 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, through some certain strainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind;
Envy, to which the ignoble mind's a slave,
Is emulation in the learned 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 allied;

Reason the bias turns to good from 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.

* That is to say, each justifies himself in the course he pursues, not stopping to take counsel of God or his higher sense.

+ Lust is the perversion of pure spiritual love; emulation is noble; and envy is low selfishness.

IV. This light and darkness in our chaos joined,
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 difference is too nice,
Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice.
Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,
That vice and 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 mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar to her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

*No one is "all bad." If one be a thief, he may at the same time be kind and even generous. One may be a gambler, and not without a feeling of devotion.

But where the extreme of vice was ne'er agreed;
Ask where's the north? at York, 'tis on the Tweed;
At 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 the 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 several goal;

But Heaven's great view is one, and that the whole;
That counterworks each folly and caprice;
That disappoints the effect of every vice;
That happy frailties to all ranks applied,
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride;
Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief,
To kings presumption, and to crowds belief;
That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise,
Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise;
And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.

Heaven, forming each on other to depend,
A master, or a servant, or a friend,

Bids each on other for assistance call,

Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all.
Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally

The common interest, or endear the tie;

To these we owe true friendship, love sincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here;

Yet from the same we learn, in its decline,

Those joys, those loves, those interests to resign;

* A criminal should be judged according to circumstances. What is the degree of his accountability? Is he intelligent? Is he ignorant? Is he rich or poor? Temperate or dissipated? Sane or insane? A fool or a philosopher? What, if any, are the extenuating circumstances? Did he inherit, from perverted parents, a natural tendency to this particular class of crimes? Are you your own master? When beset by temptations, can you say No to yourself, or to others, and hold to the right?

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