Tis thus the mercury of man is fix’d, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix’d.
Who pants for glory, finds but short repose; A breath revives him, or a breath o’erthrows.
Nature made every fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another.
The difference is as great between The optics seeing as the objects seen. All manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discolor’d through out passions shown; Or fancy’s beam enlarges, multiplies, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect’s gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?
But honest instinct comes a volunteer; Sure never to o’er-shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short in human wit.
While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave.
No more the mounting larks, while Daphne sings, Shall, list’ning, in mid-air suspend their wings.
Order is Heaven’s first law; and this confess, Some are and must be greater than the rest.
Search then the ruling passion; there alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
To what base ends, and by what abject ways, Are mortals urg’d through sacred lust of praise!
Fool, ’tis in vain from wit to wit to roam: Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.
Know then, unnumber’d Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower sky.
The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always list’ning to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.
For he lives twice who can at once employ, The present well, and e’en the past enjoy.
The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.
Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.
Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, serv’d no private end, Who gain’d no title, and who lost no friend.
Consult the Genius of the Place in all.