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Or, quick effluvia* darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If nature thundered in his opening ears,

And stunned him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr* and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives and what denies ?

Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual,* mental powers ascends :
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,

From the green myriads * in the peopled grass;
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood

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To that which warbles through the vernal* wood?

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line;

ing is, supposing touch were 212. The mole's dim curtain... beam.

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In the nice bee, what sense so subtly* true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier-
Forever separate, yet forever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied!

What thin partitions sense from thought divide !
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass the insuperable * line !
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these powers in one?

See, through this air, this ocean and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go !
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing. On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed :

From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,

Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll

Alike essential to the amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all

That system only, but the whole must fall.

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250

219. nice bee.

The word "nice" is here used in its subjective sense -fine-sensed, sensitive.

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223. barrier pronounce bar - year':

hence retained its French ac-
cent.

226. sense from thought divide: that is,
sensation from reason.
234. quick, alive.

the word was not completely
naturalized in Pope's day, and 240. glass, microscope.

Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled,
Being on being wrecked, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread order break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-O madness! pride! impiety!

What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repined
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd* for any part to claim
To be another in this general frame;
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing Mind of all ordains.

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All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul;

That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,

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Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

251-256. Let earth... God. The

meaning here is, should earth

tre and nature would tremble,

etc.

fly unbalanced from its centre, 262. to serve mere engines: that is, to

then would planets and suns
run lawless through the sky. 263.
So, also, if ruling angels should,
etc., then heaven's whole foun- 269.
dations would nod to their cen-

serve as mere engines. Just as absurd: that is, to do so would be just as absurd, etc. That. The antecedent is “soul” the soul of the universe, God

=

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Cease, then, nor order imperfection name: Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit. In this or any other sphere,

*

Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:

Safe in the hand of one disposing power,

Or in the natal or the mortal* hour.

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.

286. Secure, confident.

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CHARACTERIZATION BY LORD JEFFREY.'

1. In one point of view, the name of Franklin must be considered as standing higher than any of the others which illustrated the eighteenth century. Distinguished as a statesman, he was

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