A

EPISTLE I.

WAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings,

Let us (fince Life can little more fupply

Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of Man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan ;

A Wild, where weeds and flowers promifcuous shoot:
Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield!
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the Manners living as they rise :
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

I. Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reafon, but from what we know?
Of Man, what fee we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

He, who through vaft immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compofe one universe,
Obferve how system into fyftem runs,
What other planets circle other funs,

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What

What vary'd Being peoples every star,
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul

Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?

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II. Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find, Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and fo blind? First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guess, Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less? Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or ftronger than the weeds they fhade; Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove's Satellites are lefs than Jove?

Of Syftems poffible, if 'tis confeft,

That Wisdom infinite must form the best,

Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rifes, rife in due degree;

Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as Man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call

May, must be right, as relative to all.

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In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements fcarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one fingle can its end produce;
Yet ferves to fecond too fome other ufe.

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So

So Man, who here feems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to fome sphere unknown,
Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal;
'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.

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When the proud freed shall know why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Ægypt's God :
Then fhall Man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions, paffions', being's, ufe and end;

Why doing, fuffering, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a flave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

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What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?

The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

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As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state:

VARIATIONS.

From

In the former Editions, ver. 64.

Now wears a garland an Ægyptian God.

After ver. 68. the following lines in the first Edition.

If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?

The bleft to-day is as completely so,

As who began ten thousand years ago.

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could fuffer Being here below;
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven :
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burft, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be bleft:
The foul, uneafy, and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian whofe untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

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His

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 88. in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's Gnat should die as Cæfar bleed.

Ver. 93. in the first Folio and Quarto,

What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blifs below.

His foul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;

Yet fimple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier ifland in the watery waste,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Chriftians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

IV. Go, wifer thou! and in thy fcale of fenfe,
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Deftroy all creatures for thy fport or gust,
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjuft;
If Man alone ingrofs not Heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the God of God.
In Pride, in reasoning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 108. in the firft Edition ;

But does he fay the Maker is not good,
Till he 's exalted to what ftate he wou'd;
Himfelf alone high Heaven's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where?

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Pride