Know then, whatever chearful and serene Supports the mind, supports the body too. Hence the most vital movement mortals feel Is Hope; the balm and life-blood of the soul. 315 It pleases, and it lasts. Indulgent heaven Sent down the kind delusion, thro’ the paths Of rugged life; to lead us patient on; And make our happiest state no tedious thing. Our greatest good, and what we least can spare. 320 Is Hope; the last of all our evils, Fear. But there are Passions grateful to the breast, And yet no friends to Life; perhaps they please Or to excess, and dissipate the soul; Or while they please, torment. The stubborn Clown, 325 The ill-tam’d Ruffian, and pale Usurer, (If Love’s omnipotence such hearts can mould) May safely mellow into love; and grow Refin’d, humane, and generous, if they can. Love in such bosoms never to a fault 330 Or pains or pleases. But ye finer Souls, Form’d to soft luxury, and prompt to thrill With all the tumults, all the joys and pains, That beauty gives; with caution and reserve Indulge the sweet destroyer of repose, 335 Nor court too much the Queen of charming cares. For, while the cherish’d poison in your breast Ferments and maddens; sick with jealousy, Absence, distrust, or even with anxious joy, The wholsome appetites and powers of life 340 Dissolve in languor. The coy stomach loaths The genial board: Your chearful days are gone: The generous bloom that flush’d your cheeks is fled. To sighs devoted and to tender pains, Pensive you sit, or solitary stray, 345 And waste your youth in musing. Musing first Toy’d into care your unsuspecting heart: It found a liking there, a sportful fire, And that fomented into serious love; Which musing daily strengthens and improves 350 Thro’ all the heights of fondness and romance: And you’re undone, the fatal shaft has sped, If once you doubt whether you love or no. The body wastes away; th’ infected mind, Dissolv’d in female tenderness, forgets 355 Each manly virtue, and grows dead to fame. Sweet heaven from such intoxicating charms Defend all worthy breasts! Not that I deem Love always dangerous, always to be shun’d. Love well repaid, and not too weakly sunk 360 In wanton and unmanly tenderness, Adds bloom to Health; o’er every virtue sheds A gay, humane, and amiable grace, And brightens all the ornaments of man. But fruitless, hopeless, disappointed, rack’d 365 With jealousy, fatigued with hope and fear, Too serious, or too languishingly fond, Unnerves the body and unmans the soul. And some have died for Love; and some run mad; And some with desperate hand themselves have slain. 370