Pours fresh ambition in a Cæfar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loofe to fcourge mankind?
From pride, from pride our very reas'ning springs ;
Account for moral. as for natura Ithings;
Why charge we heav'n in thofe, in thefe acquit ?
In both, to reafon right is to fubmit.
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 ftrife *;
And paffions are the elements of life.
The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.
VI. What would this man? Now upward will he foar,
And little less than Angel, would be more?
Now looking downwards, juft as griev'd appears
To want the ftrength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his ufe, all creatures if he call.
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all;
Nature to thefe, without profufion kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affigu'd ;
Each feeming want compenfated of course,
Here with degrees of fwiftnefs, there of force:
All in exact proportion to the ftate;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
* See this fubject extended in Ep. ii. from ver. go to 112, 155, &c.
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 pleased 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 flate can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reafon, man is not a fly.
Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv'n,
T' infpe&t a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To finart 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 flunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres,
How would he wish that heav'n had left him ftill
The whifp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wife,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies ?
VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,
The fcale of fenfual, mental pow'rs afcends:
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grafs:
What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Offmell, 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 fenfe fo fubtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How inflinct 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 reflection how ally'd ;
What thin partitions fenfe from thought divide?
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' infuperable line!
Without this juft gradations 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 earth, All matter quick, and burfing into birth.
Above, how high, progreffive life may go !
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vaft chain of Being! which from God began,
Natures etherial, human, angel, man,
Beaft, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee,
No glass 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 ftep broken, the great scale's deftroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you flrike,
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 fyflem only, but the whole mufl fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and funs run lawless thro' the fky;
Let ruling Angels from their fpheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their center 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 ferve mere engines to the ruling mind:
Juft as abfurd for any part to claim
Tobe 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,
Whole 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,
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, m a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph thatadores and burns :
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
X. Ceafe then, nor ORDER Imperfection name :
Our proper blifs depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n beftows ou thee,
Submit. In this, or any other fphere,
-Secure to be as bleft as thou canst bear :
Safe in the hand of one difpofing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, ar the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not fee;
All difcord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, univerfal good:
And, fpite of pride, in erring reafon's spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.
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