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Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. [known,
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples every star,
May tell why heavens has made us as we are.
But of this frame, the bearings and the ties,
The strong connexions, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?

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II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou Why form'd so weak, so little and so blind? [find, First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less? Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove.

Of systems possible, if 'tis confess'd, That wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must fai! or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree;

Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,

There must be somewhere, such a rank as man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has placed him wrong?
Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,

May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though labour'd on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain:

In God's one single can its end produce;

Yet serve to second too some other use:

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So man who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal:
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

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When the proud steed shall knowwhyman 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 Egypt's god, Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend His actions', passions', being's use and end; Why doing, suffering, check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault: Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought: His knowledge measured to his state and place, His time a moment, and a point his space.

If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The bless'd to-day is as completely so,

As who began a thousand years ago.

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III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know' Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

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Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,

But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
Man never Is, but always To be bless'd:
The soul, uneasy, and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates on a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;

Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Beaind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heaven;
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV. Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such
Say, here he gives too little, there too much
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet say,
if man's unhappy, God's unjust.
If man alone engross not Heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,

Re-judge his justice, be the god of God.

In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;

All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel :
And who but wishes to invert the laws

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Of order, sins against the Eternal Cause

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V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ''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 rose, 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, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies.'

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But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? 'No,' 'tis replied, 'the first Almighty Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws;'

The exceptions few; some change since all began; And what created perfect ?-Why then man?

If the great end be human happiness,

Then nature deviates; and can man do less? 150
As much that end a constant course requires

Of showers and sun-shine, as of man's desires?
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wise.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven'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 storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? 160 From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs; Account for moral as for natural things:

Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit ? In both, to reason 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 passion discomposed the mind.
But all subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.

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The general order since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar
And, little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the powers of all?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated; of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:

Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone?

Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleased with nothing, if not bless'd with all?

The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No powers of body or of soul to share,

But what his nature and his state can bear.

Why has not man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reason, man is not a fly.

Say what the use, were finer optics given,

To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?

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Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,

Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

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If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental, powers ascends: