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Grant that the powerful ftill the weak controul;
Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole:
Nature that Tyrant checks; he only knows,
And helps, another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, ftooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, fpare the dove?
Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?

Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beafts his pastures, and to fish his floods:
For fome his interest prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:
All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy
Th' extenfive ble fling of his luxury.
That very life his learned hunger craves,

He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being, makes it blest:
Which fees no more the ftroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch ethereal flain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!
To each unthinking being, Heaven a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To Man imparts it; but with such a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:
The hour conceal'd, and fo remote the fear,
Death fill draws nearer, never feeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heaven affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

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II. Whether

II. Whether with Reason, or with Instinct bleft,

Know, all enjoy that power which fuits them beft; 80
To blifs alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full Instinct is th' unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need befide?
Reason, however able, cool at best,

Cares not for fervice, or but ferves when preft,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honeft Inftinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit;

While still too wide or fhort is human Wit;
Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reafon labours at in vain.
This too ferves always, Reason never long:
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing powers
One in their nature, which are two in ours!
And Reafon raise o'er Inftinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man.

Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To fhun their poifon, and to chufe their food?
Prefcient, the tides or tempefts to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand ?

VARIATION.

After ver. 84, in the MS.

While Man, with opening views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge frays;
Too weak to chufe, yet chufing still in hafte,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.

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Who

Who made the fpider parallels defign,

Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the ftork, Columbus-like, explore

Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, ftates the certain day?
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper blifs, and fets its proper bounds:
But as he fram'd a Whole, the Whole to blefs,
On mutual Wants built mutual Happiness :
So from the firft, eternal ORDER ran,

And creature link'd to creature, man to man.
Whate'er of life all-quickening æther keeps,

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Or breathes through air, or fhoots beneath the deeps,
Or pours profufe on earth, one nature feeds
The vital flame, and fwells the genial feeds.
Not man alone, but all that roam the wood,
Or wing the fky, or roll along the flood,
Each loves itself, but not itself alone,
Each fex defires alike, till two are one.

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Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace;
They love themselves, a third time, in their race.
Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, 125
The mothers nurfe it, and the fires defend;

The young difmifs'd to wander earth or air,

There ftops the Inftinct, and there ends the care;
The link diffolves, each feeks a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds, another race.

A longer care Man's helplefs kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lafting bands:

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Reflection,

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Reflection, Reason, ftill the ties improve,
At once extend the intereft, and the love:
With choice we fix, with fympathy we burn;
Each Virtue in each Paffion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rose,
Thefe natural love maintain'd, habitual those:
The laft, fcarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Memory and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd,
Still spread the interest, and preserve the kind.
IV. Nor think, in NATURE'S STATE they blindly trod;
The State of Nature was the reign of God:
Self-love and Social at her birth began,
Union the bond of all things, and of Man.
Pride then was not; nor Arts, that Pride to aid;
Man walk'd with beaft, joint tenant of the fhade;
The fame his table, and the fame his bed;

No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed.
In the fame temple, the refounding wood,

All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The fhrine with gore unftain'd, with gold undrefs'd,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, ftood the blameless priest:
Heaven's Attribute was Universal Care,

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And man's prerogative, to rule, but fpare.

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Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;

Who,

Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their fpecies, and betrays his own.
But juft difeafe to luxury fucceeds,

And every death its own avenger breeds ;
The Fury-paffions from that blood began,
And turn'd on Man, a fiercer favage, Man.
See him from Nature rifing flow to Art!
instinct then was reason's part:
Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake

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Go, from the Creatures thy instructions take:

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Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; "Learn from the beafts the phyfic of the field;

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Thy arts of building from the bee receive; "Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; "Learn of the little Nautilus to fail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. "Here too all forms of focial union find,

"And hence let Reafon, late, inftruct Mankind: 180 "Here fubterranean works and cities fee;

"There towns aërial on the waving tree.
"Learn each fmall People's genius, policies,

"The Ant's republic, and the realm of Bees;
"How thofe in common all their wealth bestow, 185
"And Anarchy without confufion know;

"And these for ever, though a Monarch reign,
"Their separate cells and properties maintain.
"Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state,
"Laws wife as Nature, and as fix'd as Fate.
"In vain thy Reason finer webs fhall draw,
Entangle Juftice in her net of Law,

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"And

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