What vary'd Being peoples every star,

May tell, why Heav'n 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 thro'? 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. Prefumptuous man! the reafon wouldft thou find, 35 Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and fo blind? First, if thou canft, the harder reason guess, Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs? Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or ftronger than the weeds they shade? Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove's Satellites are lefs than Jove?

Of Syftems poffible, if 'tis confeft

That Wisdom infinite muft form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rifes, rife in due degree;

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Then, in the fcale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain,

There must be, fome where, fuch a rank as Man;

And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long)

Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

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Refpecting man, whatever wrong we call,

May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though labour'd on with pain,

A thoufand movements fcarce one purpofe gain;
In God's, one fingle can its end produce;

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Yet ferves to fecond too fome other use.

So Man, who here feems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to fome fphere 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 fteed shall know why Man restrains
His fiery courfe, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Aegypt's God:
Then shall Man's pride and dulnefs comprehend
His actions', paffions', being's, ufe and end;
Why doing, fuff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then fay not Man's imperfect, heav'n in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge meafur'd to his ftate and place;
His time a moment, and a point his fpace.
If to be perfect in a certain fphere,

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What matter, foon or late, or here or there?
The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

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All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state:

From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know:
Or who could fuffer Being here below?

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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 flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:

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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 burst, and now a world.

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Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future blifs, 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;
His foul, proud Science never taught to ftray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;
Yet fimple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topt-hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watry waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

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He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV. Go, wifer thou! and, in the fcale of fenfe,

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 unjust;
If Man alone ingrofs not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the Gon of God.

In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,

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Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel;

And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of ORDER, fins against th'Eternal Cause.

V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,

Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, "Tis for mine:

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For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,

Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;

Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; „For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, health gushes from a thousand fprings; Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; "My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies."

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But errs not nature from this gracious end,
From burning funs when livid deaths defcend,
When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts fweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No ('tis reply'd) the firft Almighty Caufe

» Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;

Th'exceptions few; fome change fince all began: And what created perfect? Why then Man? If the great end be human Happiness,

Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs?

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As much that end a conftant course requires

Of show'rs and fun-shine, as of Man's defires;

As much eternal fprings and cloudless skies,

As Men for ever temp'rate, calm and wife.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's defign,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

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Who knows but he, whofe hand the light'ning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms;
Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loofe to fcourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning fprings;
Account for moral, as for natʼral things:

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Why charge we Heav'n in thofe, in these acquit?
In both, to reafon right is to fubmit.

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never paffion difcompos'd the mind,
But ALL fubfifts by elemental ftrife;
And paffions are the elements of Life.

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The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began,

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he foar,

And little less than Angel, would be more;

Now looking downwards, juft as griev'd appears

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To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his ufe all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all.

Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each feeming want compenfated of course,

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Here with degrees of fwiftnefs, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;

Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Each beast, each infect, happy in its own:
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

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Be pleas'd with nothing, if not blefs'd with all?

The blifs of Man (could Pride that blefling find)

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

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No pow'rs of body or of foul to share,

But what his nature and his ftate can bear.

Why has not Man a microfcopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a Fly.
Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv'n,
T'inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?

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