Virtuous and vicious ev’ry man must be,
Few in the 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;
But Heaven’s great view is one, and that the whole.
That* counter-works 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 builds 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.*
extracted
* ‘That’ refers to Heaven’s great view, i.e. Divine Providence, which manages to turn evil to good.
* Caprice and vice do not really rhyme: caprice rhymes with fleece and vice rhymes with nice. This is an ‘eye-rhyme’, like Charles Wesley’s ‘love’ and ‘prove’.
* Pope acknowledges that God has deliberately set frailties in mankind — ‘happy’ frailties, i.e. not actual sins or impulses to evil, merely the weaknesses of human nature. He thus expresses what the Bible expresses as the ‘garment of flesh’ that was given to Adam and Eve after they were deceived by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and that was assumed by God himself when Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. Another poet, Cynewulf, expressed a similar idea, when he said that God never gives all the virtues to one man lest he become proud: see Gifts of the Spirit.
* ‘That’ picks up again on ‘Heaven’s great view’ before a few lines before. God can bring good (virtue’s ends/goals) from a vice such as vanity.
* Pope argues that although vice is always bad, the attempt to uproot it, and pity for those suffering from it, actually draw people closer together, whether out of mutual advantage or real affection. If we do not judge others, but judge ourselves quite severely, society will be made stronger; if we heap criticism upon others while being self-indulgent, society will be made weaker.