ERE then we reft; "the Universal Cause
"Acts to one end, but acts by various laws."
In all the madnefs of fuperfluous health,
The train of pride, the impudence of wealth,
Let this great truth be present night and day;
But most be present, if we preach or pray.
Look round our World; behold the chain of Love
Combining all below, and all above.
See plastic Nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endued,
Prefs to one centre ftill, the General Good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life diffolving vegetate again:
All forms that perish other forms fupply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the fea of Matter borne
They rife, they break, and to that sea return.
Nothing is foreign; Parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preferving Soul
Connects each being, greatest with the leaft;
Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beaft;
Ver. 1. In feveral Edit. in 4to.
Learn, Dulnefs, learn! "The Universal Cause," &c.
All serv'd, all serving: nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food!
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly spread the flowery lawn:
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note.
The bounding steed you pompously bestride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain?
The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer:
The hog, that plows not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.
Know, Nature's children all divide her care The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. While Man exclaims, "See all things for my ufe!" 45 "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose:
And just as short of reafon He must fall,
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
After ver. 46. in the former Editions,
What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!
All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him.
As far as Goofe could judge, he reason'd right ;
But as to Man, miftook the matter quite.
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, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, spare 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 beasts 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 bleffing of his luxury,
That very life his learned hunger craves,
He faves from famine, from the savage saves
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feaft,
And, till he ends the being, makes it bleft:
Which fees no more the stroke, 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 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 feeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heaven affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.
II. Whether with Reafon, or with Inftinct bleft,
Know, all enjoy that power which fuits them best; 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'erfhoot, 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, 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 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 tempefts to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand?
After ver. 84. in the MS.
While Man, with opening views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge strays:
Too weak to chuse, yet chufing still in haste,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.
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, states 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 first, eternal ORDER ran,
And creature link'd to creature, man to man.
Whate'er of life all-quickening æther keeps,
Or breathes through air, or shoots 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.
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, 125
The mothers nurse it, and the fires defend;
The young difmifs'd to wander earth or air,
There ftops the Instinct, and there ends the care;
The link diffolves, each feeks a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds, another race.
A longer care Man's helpless kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lasting bands:
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