Which fees no more the ftroke, or feels the pain,
'Than favour'd Man by touch ethereal flain.
The creature had his feaft of life before;
Thou, too, muft perifh when thy feast is o'er!
To each unthinking being Heav'n, a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To man imparts it, but with fuch a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too :
The hour conceal'd, and fo remote the fear,
Death ftill draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heav'n affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

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75

II. Whether with reafon or with instinct bleft, Know all enjoy that pow'r 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?
Reafon, however able, cool at beft,

Cares not for fervice, or but ferves when preft,
Stays till we call, and then not often near,
But honeft instinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit,
While ftill 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; reafon never long;
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing pow'rs
One in their nature, which are two in ours;
And reafon raife 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 poison, and to chuse their food?
Prefcient, the tides or tempeft to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand?
Who made the spider parallels defign,

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95

100

Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?

Who bid the ftork, Columbus like, explore

105

Heav'ns not his own, and worlds unknown before?

Who

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 the 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-quick'ning ether keeps,
Or breathes thro' 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 itfeif alone,
Each fex defires alike, till two are one.
Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace !
They love themselves a third time in their race.
Thus beaft and bird their common charge attend;
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 seeks a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds another race.

A longer care Man's helpless kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lafting bands;
Reflection, reafon, ftill the ties improve,
At once extend the int'reft and the love;
With choice we fix, with fimpathy we burn;
Each virtue in each paffion takes its turn;

And still new needs, new helps, new habits, rife,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood and as another rofe,

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Thele natʼral love maintain'd, habitual those:
The laft, fcarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
Saw helplefs him from whom their life began:
Mem'ry and forecast juft returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleafure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd, 145
Still spread the int'reft, and preferv'd the kind.

IV. Nor

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IV. Nor think in Nature's state they blindly trod; The state of Nature was the reign of God: Self-love and focial 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 shade; The fame his table, and the fame his bed; No murder cloth'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 undreft, Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priett: Heav'n's attribute was univerfal care, And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare. Ah! how unlike the Man of times to come! Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;" Who, foe to Nature, hears the gen'ral groan, Murders their fpecies, and betrays his own. But just difeafe to luxury fucceeds,

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And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds; The fury-pallions from that blood began, And turn'd on Man a fiercer favage, Man. See him from nature rifing flow to art! To copy inftinct then was Reafon's part : Thus then to Man the voice of Nature fpake--"Go, from the creatures thy instructions take: "Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; "Learn from the beafts the physic of the field; "Thy arts of building from the bee receive; "Learn of the mole to pough, 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 Reason, late, inftru&t Mankind:

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"Here fubterranean works and cities fee;

181

"There towns aërial on the waving tree.

"Learn each small people's genius, policies,

"The ants' republic, and the realm of bees;

"How thofe in common all their wealth bestow, "And anarchy without confulion know ;

186 "And

"And thefe for ever, tho' a monarch reign,
"Their fep'rate cells and properties maintain.
"Mark what unvary'd laws preferve 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,
“And right, too rigid, harden into wrong,
"Still for the strong too weak, the weak too ftrong.
"Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway,
"Thus let the wifer make the rest obey;

"And for thofe arts mere inftinct could afford,
"Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods ador'd."
V. Great Nature spoke; obfervant Man obey'd;
Cities were built, focieties were made:
Here rofe one little state; another near
Grew by like means, and join'd thro' love or fear.
Did here the trees with ruddier burthens bend,
And there the streams in purer rills defcend?
What war could ravish commerce could bestow,
And he return'd a friend who came a foe.
Converse and love mankind might strongly draw,
When love was liberty, and Nature law.

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210

Thus ftates were form'd, the name of King unknown,
Till common int'reft plac'd the fway in one.
'Twas virtue only, (or in arts or arms
Diffufing bleffings, or averting harms,)
The fame which in a fire the fons obey'd,
A prince the father of a people made.

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VI. Till then, by Nature crown'd, each patriarch sate King, prieft, and parent, of his growing state; On him, their fecond Providence, they hung, Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. He from the wond'ring furrow call'd the food, Taught to command the fire, control the flood, Draw forth the monsters of th' abyf's profound, Or fetch the aërial eagle to the ground; Till drooping, fick'ning, dying, they began Whom they rever'd as God to mourn as Man: Then looking up from fire to fire, explor'd One great firft Father, and that first ador'd:

225

Or

Or plain tradition that this All begun,
Convey'd unbroken faith from fire to fon;
The worker from the work diftinct was known,
And fimple reafon never fought but one.
Ere wit oblique had broke that fteady light,
Man, like his Maker, faw that all was right;
To virtue in the paths of pleasure trod,
And own'd a Father when he own'd a God.
Love all the faith and all th' allegiance then,
For Nature knew no right divine in Men ;
No ill could fear in God, and understood
A fov'reign being but a fov'reign good.
True faith, true policy, united ran;

That was but love of God, and this of Man.

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Who firft taught fouls enflav'd, and realms undone, Th' enormous faith of many made for one; That proud exception to all Nature's laws, 'T' invert the world, and counterwork its cause. Force first made conqueft, and that conquest law, Till fuperftition taught the tyrant awe,

246

Then fhar'd the tyranny, then lent it aid,
And gods of conqu'rors, flaves of subjects, made:
She 'midft the lightning's blaze and thunder's found,
When rock'd the mountains and when groan'd the
ground,

She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray
To Pow'r unfeen, and mightier far than they;
She from the rending earth and bursting fkies
Saw gods defcend, and fiends infernal rife;

250

Here fix'd the dreadful, there the blefs'd abodes; 255
Fear made her devils, and weak Hope her gods;
Gods partial, changeful, paffionate, unjuft,
Whofe attributes were rage, revenge, or luft;
Such as the fouls of cowards might conceive,
And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not Charity, became the guide,
And hell was built on fpite, and heav'n on pride:
Then facred feem'd th' ethereal vault no more;
Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore:

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The