From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could fuffer Being here below? 80 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 95 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar; 4 Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untutor❜d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 90 95 100 VARIATIONS. After ver. 88, in the MS. No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed Ver. 93, in the first Folio and Quarto, What blifs above he gives not thee to know, His foul proud Science never taught to stray Yet fimple Nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven; Some happier island in the watery waste, Where flaves once more their native land behold, He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense, VARIATIONS. After ver. 108, in the first Edition: But does he say the Maker is not good, 105 110 115 120 Pride Pride still is aiming at the bleft abodes, 125 Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. And who but wishes to invert the laws Of Order, fins against th' Eternal Cause. 130 V. Afk for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, " "Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial power; "Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; "Annual for me, the grape, the rofe, renew "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thoufand treasures brings; "For me, health gufhes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; 135 My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the kies." But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the firft Almighty Caufe "Acts not by partial, but by general 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? 140 145 150 If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's defign, Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline? Who knows, but he whofe hand the lightning 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? 160 Why charge we Heaven in thofe, in these acquit? Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, The general Order, fince the whole began, 165 170 VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he foar, And, little lefs than Angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears 175 Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. D 2 180 Each 185 190 Each beast, each infect, happy in its own: Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bleft with all? No powers of body or of foul to share, But what his nature and his ftate can bear. T'' infpect a mite, not comprehend the heaven ? 195 Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, 200 If nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And ftunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres, VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, And hound fagacious on the tainted green; 205 210 Of |