Page images
PDF
EPUB

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)
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 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:
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,

Vice is a monster of so frightful mein,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with its 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 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 sev'ral goal:

But Heaven's great view is one, and that the whole:

That counter works each folly and caprice;
That disappoints th' effect of every vice:
That happy frailties to all ranks appli'd,
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride,
Fear to the stateman, rashness to the chief,
To kings presumption, and to crowds belief;
That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise,
Which seeks to 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,

"Til one man's weakness grows the strength of

all.

Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally

The common int'rest, 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;
Taught half by reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pass away.

Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbor with himself.
The learn'd is happy, nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty given;
The poor contents him with the care of Heaven.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing,
The sot a hero, lunatic a king;

The starving chemist in his golden views
Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.

See some strange comfort every state attend,
And pride, bestow'd on all, a common friend,
See some fit passion every age supply,
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:

Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,

A little louder, but as empty quite:

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before,
'Til tir'd he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.
Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays
Those painted clouds that beautify our days:
Each want of happiness by hope supplied,
And each vacuity of sense by pride:
These build as fast as knowledge can destroy;
In folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy:
One prospect lost, another still we gain,
And not a vanity is giv'n in vain.

E'en mean self-love becomes, by force, divine,
The scale to measure other's wants by thine:
See! and confess, one comfort still must rise,
'Tis this, though man's a fool, yet GOD IS WISE.

« PreviousContinue »