Or man in the abftract.-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own fyftem, being ignorant of the relations of fyftems and things, ver. 17, &c. II. That man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being fuited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown, ver. 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future ftate, that all his happiness in the prefent depends, ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the caufe of man's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitnefs or unfitnefs, perfection or imperfection, juftice or unjustice, of his difpenfations, ver. 109, &c. V. The abfurdity of copceiting himself the final caufe of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, ver. 131, &c. VI. The unreafonableness of his complaints againft providence, while on the one hand he demands the perfection of the angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the brutes; though, to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, ver. 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole vifible world, an univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which caufes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. The gradations of fenfe, instinct, thought, reflection, reafon; that reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIII. How much farther this order and fubordination of living creatures may extend above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed, ver. 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of fuch a defire, ver 250. X. The confequence of all the abfolute fubmiffion due to providence, both as to our prefent aud future state, ver. 281, &c. to the end.

AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
Let us (fince life can little more fupply
Than just to look about us, and to die),
Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of man;

A mighty maze! but not without a plan: [fhoot;
A wild, where weeds and flowers promifcuous
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent trads, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Fye nature's walks, fhoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rife:

ΤΟ

Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can ; But vindicate the ways of God to man.

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

20

'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vaft immensity 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?
II. Prefumptuous man! the reafon would'n

thou find,

30

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?
Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or weaker than the weeds they fhade? 40
Or afk of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's fatellites are lefs than Jove?

Of fyftems poffible, if 'tis confeft,
That Wildon Infinite muft form the best,
Where all muft fall or not coherent be,
And all that rifes, rife in due degree;
Then, in the fcale of reafoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as man :
And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long),
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

50

Relpecting 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 fcarce one purpofe gain : In God's, one fingle can its end produce; Yet ferves to fecond too fome other ufe. So man, who here feems principle alone, Perhaps acts fecond to fome sphere unknown, Touches fome wheel or verges to fome goal; 'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.

60

When the proud fteed fhall know why man reftrains

His fiery courfe, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Fgypt's god:
Then fhall man's pride and dulnefs comprehend
His actions', paflions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, fuffering, 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: 70
His knowledge meafur'd to his ftate and place;
His time a moment, and a point his fpace.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?
The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

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: From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know:

80

Or who could fuffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reafon, would he fkip and play?
Pleas'd 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,

90

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions
foar;

"Wait the great teacher death; and God adore.
What future blifs, 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; Ico
His foul proud fcience 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 Chriftians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural defire,

He asks no angel's wing, no feraph's fire; 110
But hinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

IV. Go, wifer thou and in thy fcale of fenfe, Weigh thy opinion against providence;

VARIATIONS.

The bleft to-day is as completely fo,
As who began ten thousand years ago.
After ver. 88, in the MS.
No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's gnat fhould die as Cæfar bleed.
Ver. 93, in the first folio and quarto.
What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blifs below.
After ver. 108, in the first edition.
But does he fay the Maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what ftate he wou'd;
Himself alone high heaven's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where ?

| Call imperfection what thou fancy'st fuch;
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy fport or guft,
Yet fay, 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 juftice, be the god of God.
In pride, in reafoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their fphere, and rufh into the skies.
Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Alpiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Afpiring to be angels, men rebel:

And who but withes to invert the laws
Of order, fins against th' eternal cause.

120

13༠

V. Afk for what end the heavenly bodies fhine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, " '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 role, renew "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me health guhes from a thousand fprings; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; "My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies." 140

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 firft Almighty caufe "Acts not by partial, but by general laws; "Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all be

gan:

"And what created perfe&t ?"—Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then nature deviates; and can man do lefs? 150
As much that end a conftant courfe requires
Of fhowers and fun-fhine, as of man's defires;
As much eternal fprings and cloudlefs fkies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wife.
If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's defign,
Why then a Borgio, or a Catiline? [forms,
Who knows, but he whofe hand the lightning
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the ftorms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæfar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loofe to fcourge man-
kind?
160
From pride, from pride, our very reafoning springs
Account for moral as for natural things:
Why charge we heaven in thofe, in these 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 general 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 lefs than angel, would be more;

170

Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, Deftroying others, by himself deftroy'd.

Moft ftrength the moving principle requires;
Active its task, it prompts, impels, infpires.
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies.
Form'd but to check, deliberate, and advise.
Self-love, still stronger, as its obje&s nigh;
Reason's at diftance, and in profpect lie:
That fees immediate good by present sense;
Reason, the future and the confequence.
Thicker than arguments, témptations throng,
At beft more watchful this, but that more ftrong.
The action of the ftronger to fufpend,
Reafon ftill ufe, to reafon ftill attend.
Attention, habit, and experience gains;

Each ftrengthens reason, and felf-love reftrains. 80
Let fubtle fchoolmen teach thefe friends to fight,
More ftudious to divide than to unite;
And grace and virtue, fenfe and reason split,
With all the rafh dexterity of wit.
Wits, just like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the fame.
Self-love and reafon to one end afpire,
Pain their averfion, pleasure their defire;
But greedy that, its object would devour,
This tafte the honey, and not wound the flower :
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

[call;
III. Modes of felf-love the pallions we may
'Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all :
But fince not every good we can divide,
And reafon bids us for our own provide;
Paffions, though felfifh, if their means be fair,
Lift under reafon, and deferve her care;
Thofe, that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take fome virtue's name. 100
In lazy apathy let floics boast
Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a froft;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But ftrength of mind is exercife, not rest:
The rifing tempeft puts in act the foul;
Parts it may ravage, but preferves the whole.
On life's vaft ocean diverfely we fail,
Reafon the card, but paffion is the gale;
Nor God alone in the ftill calm we find,

He mounts the ftorm and walks upon the wind. 110
Paffions, like elements, though born to fight.

Yet, mix'd and foften'd, in his work unite:
Thele, 'tis enough to temper and employ ;
But what compofes man, can man deftroy?
Suffice that reafon kecp to nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.
Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's fmiling train;
Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain;

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 86, in the MS.

Of good and evil gods what frighted fools, Of good and evil reafon puzzled schools, Deceiv'd, deceiving, taught

After. ver. 108, in the MS.

A tedious voyage! where how ufclefs lies
The compaís, if no powerful gufts arife!
After ver. 112, in the MS.
The foft reward the virtuous, or invite:
The fierce, the vicious punish or affright.

As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death;
The young disease, which muft fubdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and ftrengthens with his
ftrength:

So, caft and mingled with his very frame,
The mind's difeafe, its ruling paflion came;
Each vital humour, which fhould feed the whole,
Soon flows to this, in body and in foul:
Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head,
As the mind opens, and its functions spread,
Imagination plies her dangerous art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part.

Nature its mother, habit is its nurse;
Wit, fpirit, faculties, but make it worse;
Reafon itself but gives it edge and power;
As heaven's bleft beam turns vizegar more four.

160

We, wretched fubjects though to lawful fway,
In this weak queen, fome favourite ftill obey: 150
Ah! if the lend not arms, as well as rules,
What can fhe more than tell us we are fools?
Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend;
A fharp accufer, but a helpless friend!
Or from a judge turn pleader, to perfuade
The choice we make, or juftify it made;
Proud of an eafy conqueft all along,
She but removes weak paflions for the ftrong:
So, when small 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 ftill a guard:
'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this paffion more as friend than foe;
A mightier power the strong direction sends,
And feveral men impels to feveral ends:
Like varying winds, by other paffions toft,
This drives them conftant to a certain coaft.
Let power or knowledge, geld or glory, please,
Or (oft more ftrong than all) the love of ease; 170
Through life 'tis follow'd, ev'n 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 paffion pur beft principle:
'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd,
Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd;
The drofs cements what elfe were too refin'd,
And in one intereft body acts with mind.

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care,

On favage Rocks inferted learn to bear;

18

190

200

The fureft virtues thus from paffions fhoot,
Wild nature's vigour working at the root.
What crops of wit and honefty appear
From ipleen, from obftinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal and fortitude supply;
Ev'n avarice, prudence; floth, philofophy;
Luft, through fome certain Arainers well refin'd,
ls gentle love, and charms all womankind;
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind 's a flave,
Is emulation in the learn'd or brave;
Nor virtue, male or female, can we name,
But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame.
Thus nature gives us (let it check our pride)
The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd;
Reafon the bias turns to good from ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery foul abhorr'd in Cataline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The fame ambition can deftroy or fave,
And makes a patriot as it make a knave.
This light and darkness in our chaos join'd.
What fhall divide? The God within the mind.
Extremes in nature equal ends produce,
In man they join to fome mysterious use;
Though each by turns the other's bound invade,
As, in fome well-wrought picture, light and fhade,
And oft fo mix, the difference is too nice
Where ends the virtue or begins the vice,
Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,
That vice or virtue there is none at all.
If white and black blend, foften, and unite
A thousand ways, is there no black or white?
Ask your own heart, and nothing is fo plain;
'Tis to mistake them, cofts the time and pain.
Vice is a monster of fo frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be feen;
Yet feen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
But where th' extreme of vice, was ne'er agreed:
Aik where's the north; at York, 'tis on the Tweed;

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 194, in the MS.

210

220

How oft with paffion, virtue points her charms!
Then fhines the hero, then the patriot warms.
Peleus' great fon, or Brutus, who had known,
Had Lucrece been a whore, or Helen none?
But virtues opposite to make agree,

That, reafon is thy tafk, and worthy thee,
Hard talk, cries Bibulus, and reason weak.
-Make it a point, dear Marquifs, or a pique.
Once, for a whim. perfuade yourself to pay
A debt to reafon, like a debt at play.

For right or wrong, have mortals fuffer'd more?
B for his prince, or for his whore?
Whole felf-denials nature most controul?
His, who would fave a fixpence, or his foul?
Web for his health, a Chartreux for his fin,
Contend they not which fooneft fhall grow thin?
What we refolve, we can: but here's the fault,
We ne'er refolve to do the thing we ought.
After ver. 220, in the first edition followed these :
A cheat a whore who starts not at the name,
In all the inns of court or Drury-lane?.

In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there,

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 thofe who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natures fhrink at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.

230

[whole.

Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree; The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wife; And ev'n the beft, by fits, what they defpife. 'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill; For, vice or virtue, felf directs it still; Each individual feeks a feveral goal; But heaven's great view, is one, and that the That counter-works each folly and caprice; That difappoints th' effect of every vice: That, happy frailties to all ranks apply'd; Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride; Fear to the statesman, rafhness to the chief; To kings prefumption, and to crowds belief: That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise, Which feeks no intereft, no reward but praise; And build on wants, and on defects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.

240

250

Heaven forming cach on other to depend, A matter, or a fervant, or a friend, Bids each on other for affiftance call, Till one man's weaknefs grows the ftrength of all. Wants, frailties, paffions, clofer ftill ally The common interett, or endear the tie. To these we owe true friendship, love fincere, Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; Yet from the fame we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those interests, to resign; Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pafs away. Whate'er the paffion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. The learn'd is happy nature to explore, The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty given, The poor contents him with the care of heaven. See the blind beggar dance, the cripple fing, The fot a hero, lunatic a king; The ftarving chemift in his golden views, Supremely bleft, the poet in his mufe.

260

270

See fome ftrange comfort every flate attend, And pride beftow'd on all, a common friend : See fome fit paffion every age fupply; Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 226, in the MS.

The colonel fwears the agent is a dog;
The fcrivener vows th' attorney is a rogue.
Against the thief th' attorney loud inveighs,
For whofe ten pounds the country twenty pays.
The thief damns judges, and the knaves of ftate;
And dying, mourns fmall villain, hang'd by great