EPISTLE I.

WAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things
Tolow ambition, and the pride of Kings.

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Lena (fince Life can little more fupply
Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatia free o'er all this fcene of Man;
A mighty maze but not without a plan :
A Wild, where eds and flowers promifcuous fhoot;
Or Garden, te.noting with forbid ten fruit.
Together let us ceat this ample field,
Try what the open, w at the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar:
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the Manners living as they rife;
Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

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When the proud fteed fhall know why man re-
ftrains

His fiery courfe, or drives him o'er the plains;
Is now a victim, and now Ægypt's God:
When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Then fhall Man's pride and dulnefs comprehend 65
His actions', paffions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, foffering, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a flave, the next a deity.

Then fay not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather, Man 's as perfect as he ought;
15 His knowledge meafur'd to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

I. Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reafon, but from what we know?
Of man, what fee we but his itation here,
From which to reafon, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd through the God be
known,

'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vaft immenfity can pierce,

See worlds on worlds compofe one universe,

Obferve how fyftem into fyftem runs,

What other planets circle other funs,
What vary'd Being peoples every star,
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole ?

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?

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II. Prefumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou
find,

Why form'd fo weak, fo itttle, and fo blind?
First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs?
Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or weaker than the weeds they fhade;
Or afk of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?

What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?
The blett to-day is as completely fo,
As who began a thousand years ago.

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III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book af
Fate,

All but the page prefcrib'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 Reafon, would he skip and play?
Pleas' to the laft, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand juft rais'd to fhed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a fparrow fall,
Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world."

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Of Syftems poffible, if 'tis confeft, That Wifdom infinite mult form the best, Where all muft full or not coherent be,

See God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100
His foul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;

Yet fimple Nature to his hope has given,

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And all that rifes, rife in due degree;

Then, in the fcale of reafoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, fomewhere, fuch aank as Man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd, 195
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,

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No fiends torment, no Chriftians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call
May, muft must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, though 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.

He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal fky,

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His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Destroy all creatures for thy fport or gust,
Yet lay, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone ingrofs 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 reafoning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their fphere, 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 Angeis 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 heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, «Iis for

mine:

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The blifs of Man (could Pride that bleffing find)
is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No powers of body or of foul to share,
But what his nature and his ftate can bear,
Why has not Man a microfcopic eye ?
For this plain reafon, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the ufe, were finer optics given,
Tinfpeét a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To fmart and agonize at every pore?
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
14 Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

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"For me kind Nature wakes her genial power;
"Suckles each herb, and fpreads out every flower;
"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 rife;
"My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies."

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But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning funs when livid deaths defcend,
When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempests fweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Caufe
"Acts not by partial, but by general 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 conftant courfe requires
Ot fhowers and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal fprings and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wife.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's defign,
Why then a Borgin, or a Catiline?

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Who knows, but he whofe hand the lightning forins,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms;
Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loofe to fcourge mankind?160
From pride, from pride, our very reafoning iprings;
Account for moral as for natural things:
Why charge we Heaven in thofe, in thefe acquit ?
In both, to reafon right, is to fubnit.

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 difcompos'd the mind,
But all fubfifts by elemental ftrite;
And paffions are the elements of Life.
The general Order, fince the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man? Now upward will

foar,

And, little less than Angel, would be more;

If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heaven had left him ftill

The whispering Zephyr, and the purling ri!!!
Who finds not Providence all good and wife,
Alike in what it gives, and whrat denies?

VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,
The scale of fenfual, mental powers afcends
Mark how it mounts to Man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grats
What modes of fight betwixt cach wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beamj
Of fmell, the headlong lionefs between,
And hound fagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
Ta that which warbles through the vernal wood!
The fpider's touch, how exquifitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what fenfe fo fubtly true

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From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew! 220
How Inftinct varies in the groveling wine,
Compar'd, half-reafoning elephant, with thine!
"Twixt that, and Keafon, what a nice barrier!
For ever feparate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflection how allied;
What thin partitions Senfe from Th ught divide!
And Midele atures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' infuperable line 1
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, thefe to thote, or all to thee?
The powers of all fubdued by thee alone,
17° Is not thy Reafon all thefe powers in one?

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VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and thi earth,

he All matter quick, and bursting into birth.

Above, how high, progredive life may go!
Around, Low wide! how deep extend below!

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Which fery'd the past, and must the times to come!
II. Two Principles in human nature reign;
Self-love, to urge, and Reafon, to refrain,
Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call,
Each works its end, to move or govern all
And to their proper operation ftill,
Afcribe all Good, to their improper, Ill.

Self-love, the fpring of motion, acts the foul;
Reafon's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end:
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar (pot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;

Or, meteor-like, flame lawlefs through the void, 65 On different lentes, different objects strike;

Reafon itf-lf but gives it edge and power;
As Heaven's biest beam turns vinegar more four.

We, wretched fubjects though to lawless sway,
In this weak queen, fome favourite still obey;
Ah! if the lead not arms as well as rules,
What can the more than tell us we are fools?
Teach us to mourn our Nature, not to mend
A tharp accufer, but a helpleis friend!
Or from a judge turn pleader, to perfuade
The choice we make, or justify it made
Proud of an easy conquest all along,
She but removes weak palions for the ftrong:
So, when Imall humours gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out.

Yes, Nature's road must ever be preferr'd;
Reafon is here no guide, but still a guard:
'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this paflion more as friend than foe;
A mightier Power the frong direction fends,
And overal Men impels to feveral ends :
Like varying winds, by other pations toft,
'This drives them conitant to a certain coast.
Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more ftro, g thu ail) the love of eafe;
Through life 'tis follow'd, evin at life's expence ;
The merchant's toil, the fage's indolence,
The monk's humility, the hero's pride,
All, all alike, find Reafon on their fide,

Th' Eternal Art, educing good from ill,
Grafts on this Pailion our best principle:
'Tis thus the Mercury of Man is fix'd,
Strong grows the Virtue with his nature mix'd
The diofs cements what else were too refin'd,
And in one interest body acts with mind.
As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care,
On lavage ftocks inferted learn to bear;
The fureft Virtues thus from Parlion shoot,
Wad Nature's vigour working at the root.
What crops of wit and honesty appear
From fpleen, fron obstinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal and fortitude fupply;
Ev'n avarice, prucence; fioth, philofophy;
Luft, through fore certain ftrainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind;
Envy, to which thʼ ignoble mind's a slave,
Isemulation in the urn'd or brave;

Nor Virtue, mal or female, can we name,
But what will grow on Pride, or grow on Shame.

At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.
No creature owns it in the first degree,
But thinks his neighbour further gone than he:
Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
165 What happier natures fhrink at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.

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Virtuous and Vicious every man mu be
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree;
The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wife;
And even the beft, by fits, what they defpife.
'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill;
For, Vice or Virtue, Seif directs it ftill;
175 Each incividual feeks a feveral goal;

But Heaven's great view, is One, and that the Whole.
That counter-works each folly and caprice:
That dilappoints th' effect of every vice:
That, happy frailties to all ranks apply'd:
180 Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride;
Fear to the stateiman, rafhnefs to the chief;
To king's prefumption, and to crowds belief:
That, Virtue's ends from vanity can raise, 245
Which feeks no intereft, no reward but praise ;
185 And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of Mankind.

Heaven forming each on other to depend
A mafter, or a fervant, or a friend,

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Bids each on other for affittance call,

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The starving chemift in his golden viewa
Supremely bleft, the Poet in his Mufe,