Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul

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Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole ?
Is the great chain, thar draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by GoD or thee?

II. Prefumptuous Man! the reason would'st thou find
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 and stronger than the weeds they fhade;
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,

Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?
Of fyftems poffible, if 'tis confest

That Wisdom infinite muft form the best,
Where all muft full or not ocherent be,
And all that rises, rife in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life 'tis plain,
There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as Man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements fcarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one fingle can its end produce;
Yet ferves to fecond too fome other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to fone fphere unknown,
Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal;
'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.

When the proud steed fhall know why man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains; When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Ægypt's god: Then fhall man's pride and dullness comprehend His actions', paffions', being's, use and end; Why doing, fuff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a flave, 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 measur'd to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

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

As who began a thousand years ago.

[Fate,

III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could fuffer being here below;

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:
Who fees with equal eye, as GoD of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

VOL. III.

B

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 blessing 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 stray
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 wat❜ry waste,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

IV. Go, wifer thou! and in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, Say, here he gives too little, there too much : Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, GoD's unjust; · If Man alone engrofs 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 GOD of GOD.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the fkies.
Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Afpiring to be Angels, men rebel :
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, fins against th Eternal Caufe.

V. Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, Earth for whose use? pride answers, " 'Tis for mine: "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 rofe renew "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rise; "My foot-frool earth, my canopy the skies."

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 first Almighty Cause "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?

As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.

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

Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms; Pours fierce ambition in a Caefar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning fprings; Account for moral as for natʼral things:

Why charge we heav'n in those, in these acquit ?
In both, to reafon right, is to submit.

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 discompos'd the mind.
But all fubfifts by elemental strife;
And paffions are the elements of Life.
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 lefs than Angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the ftrength of bulls, the fur of bears,
Made for his ufe all creatures if he call,
Say what their ufe, had he the pow'rs of all;
Nature to thefe, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs allign'd;