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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 preserves the whole.
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail;
Reason the card, but passion is the gale;
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,

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He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. 110
Passions like elements, though 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 ștrife
Gives all the strength and colour 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 different senses different objects strike:
Hence different passious 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,

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The young disease, that must subdue at length, 135 Grows with his growth, and strenghtens with his strength:

So, cast and mingled 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;

rides in the

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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 pow'r,
As Heav'n's bless'd beam turns vinegar more sour.
We, wretched subjects, though to lawful sway,
In this weak queen some favourite 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 driven 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 as friend than foe:
A mightier pow'r 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 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 interest body acts with mind.

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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,

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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 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.

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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 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 difference 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 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.

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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 neighbour further gone than he;
Ev'n 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 ev'ry man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree:
The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise,
And ev❜n 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;

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But Heav'ns great view is one, and that the whole:
That counterworks each folly and caprice;
That disappoints the effect of ev'ry 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 builds on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.

Heav'n 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.

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To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 255
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.

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Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbour 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 giv'n,

The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing.
The sot a hero, lunatic a king:

The starving chemist in his golden views
Supremely bless'd, 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:

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Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age: 280
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before,
Till 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 given in vain:

Ev'n mean self-love becomes, by force divine,
The scale to measure others' wants by thine.
See! and confess one comfort still must rise;
'Tis this,---Though Man's a fool, yet God is wise.

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