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 strong 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?

30

II. Prefumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and fo blind?
First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guess,

Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs?
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 Syftems poffible, if 'tis confeft,

That Wisdom infinite muft form the beft,
Where all muft full or not coherent be,

And all that rises, rise in due degree;

Then, in the fcale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, fsomewhere, such a rank as Man :
And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call

May, must be right, as relative to all.

40

45

50

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.

55

So

So Man, who here feems principal alone,

Perhaps acts fecond to some sphere unknown, Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal; 'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.

60

When the proud steed shall know why man reftrains
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 shall Man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions, paffions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, fuffering, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a flave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven 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,

65

70

What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?

The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

75

As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state :

VARIATIONS.

From

In the former Editions, ver. 64.

Now wears a garland an Ægyptian God.

After ver. 68. the following lines in the first Edition.

If to be perfect in a certain fphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?

The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

As who began ten thousand years ago.

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could fuffer Being here below;

80

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 flowery food,

And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,

85

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.

90

Ho humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing 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;

95

100

His

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 88. in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's Gnat should die as Cæfar bleed.
Ver. in the first Folio and Quarto,

93.

What blifs above he gives not thee to know,

But gives that Hope to be thy blifs below.

His foul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;

Yet fimple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven ;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier ifland in the watery 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 fense,
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 fport or gust,
Yet cry, 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 reasoning Pride, our error lies ;
All quit their sphere, and rufh into the skies.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 108. in the firft Edition;
But does he fay the Maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what state he wou'd;
Himself alone high Heaven's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where ?
VOL. II.

D

105

110

115

120

Pride

(

34

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 Cause.

125

130

V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whofe 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, funs to light me rise; My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies." But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts fweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep ? "No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause

135

140

145

"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
Of showers and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;

150

As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wife.