Nature to thefe, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each feeming want compenfated of course;
Here with degrees of fwiftnefs, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beaft, each infect, happy in its own;
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone;
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not blefs'd with all? The blifs of Man (could pride that bleffing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No pow'rs of body or of foul to fhare,
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 giv'n,
T' infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To fmart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?
If Nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heav'n had left him ftill The whisp'ring 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 fenfual, mental pow'rs afcends: Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass: What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of fmell, the headlong lionefs between, And hound fagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood? The fpider's touch, how exquifitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How inftinct varies in the grov'ling fwine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and reafon, what a nice barrier?
For ever fep'rate, yet for ever near !
Remembrance and reflexion, how ally'd;
What thin partition sense from thought divide?
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pafs th' infuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, thefe to thofe, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy reafon all these pow'rs in one!
VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progreffive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vaft chain of being! which from God began,
Nature ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beaft, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee,
No glafs can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing -On fuperior pow'rs
Were we to prefs, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great fcale's deftroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each fyftem in gradation roll
Alike effential to th' amazing whole,
The leaft confufion but in one, not all
That fyftem only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and funs run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread ORDER break-for whom? for thee! Vile worm !-oh madness! pride! impiety!
IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the duft to tread, Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Juft as abfurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Juft as abfurd to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing MIND OF ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whofe body Nature is, and God the foul;
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame;
Great in the earth, as in th' æthereal frame;
Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the ftars, and bloffoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unfpent;
Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect in a hair as heart;
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