The troops exulting sat in order round,
    And beaming fires illumined all the ground. 
    As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
    O’er Heaven’s clear azure spreads her sacred light,
    When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
    And not a cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene;
    Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
    And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
    O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
    And tip with silver every mountain’s head.

The “Essay” is the best known and the most quoted of all Pope’s works.  Except in form it is not poetry, and when one considers it as an essay and reduces it to plain prose, it is found to consist of numerous literary ornaments without any very solid structure of thought to rest upon.  The purpose of the essay is, in Pope’s words, to “vindicate the ways of God to Man”; and as there are no unanswered problems in Pope’s philosophy, the vindication is perfectly accomplished in four poetical epistles, concerning man’s relations to the universe, to himself, to society, and to happiness.  The final result is summed up in a few well-known lines: 

    All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
    All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
    All discord, harmony not understood;
    All partial evil, universal good: 
    And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
    One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

Like the “Essay on Criticism,” the poem abounds in quotable lines, such as the following, which make the entire work well worth reading: 

    Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 
    Man never is, but always to be blest. 
    Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
    The proper study of Mankind is Man. 
    The same ambition can destroy or save,
    And makes a patriot as it makes a knave. 
    Honor and shame from no condition rise;
    Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
      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. 
      Behold the child, by Nature’s kindly law,
    Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: 
    Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
    A little louder, but as empty quite: 
    Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
    And beads and prayer books are the toys of age: 
    Pleased with this bauble still, as that before;
    Till tired he sleeps, and Life’s poor play is o’er.[189]