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 biass turns to good from ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery soul abhorr'd in Cataline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine. 200
The same ambition can destroy or save,
And make 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, 205
In man they join to some mysterious use;
Tho' 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. 210
Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,
That vice or virtue there is none at all.
If white and black blend, soften, or unite
A thousand ways, is there no black or white?
Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; 215
'Tis to mistake them costs the time and pain.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mein,
As, to be hated, needs but to seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 220
But
