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When fell Corruption dark and deep, like Fate,
Saps the foundation of a sinking state:
When Giant-Vice and Irreligion rise,
On mountain'd falsehoods to invade the skies:
Then warmer numbers glow through Satire's page,
And all her niles are darken'd into rage:
On eagle-wing she gains Parnassus' height,
Not lofty Epic soars a nobler flight:
Then keener indignation fires her eye;
Then flash her lightnings, and her thunders fly;
Wide and more wide her flaming bolts are hurl'd,
Till all her wrath involves the guilty world,

310

320

Yet Satire oft assumes a gentler mien, And beams on Virtue's friends a smile serene! She wounds reluctant; pours her balm with joy; Glad to commend where worth attracts her eye. But chief, when virtue, learning, arts decline, She joys to see unconquer'd Merit shine; Where bursting glorious, with departing ray, True genius gilds the close of Britain's day : With joys she sees the stream of Roman art From Murray's tongue flow purer to the heart: Sees Yorke to Fame, ere yet to manhood known, And just to every virtue, but his own; Hears unstain'd Cam with generous pride proclaim A sage's, critic's, and a poet's name : Beholds, where Widcombe's happy hills ascend, Each orphan'd art and virtue find a friend, To Hagley's honour'd shade directs her view; And culls each flower, to form a wreath for you. But tread with cautious step this dangerous Beset with faithless precipices round : Truth be your guide: disdain Ambition's call; And if you fall with Truth, you greatly fall, 'Tis Virtue's native lustre that must shine; The poet can but set it in his line: And who unmov'd with laughter can behold A sordid pebble meanly grac'd with gold? Let real merit then adorn your lays, For shame attends on prostituted praise: And all your wit, your most distinguish'd art, But makes us grieve you want an honest heart.

330

[ground,

Nor think the Muse by Satire's laws confin'd: She yields description of the noblest kind. Inferior art the landscape may design, And paint the purple evening in the line; Her daring thought essays a higher plan; Her hand delineates passion, pictures man. And great the toil, the latent soul to trace, To paint the heart, and catch internal grace; By turns bid vice or virtue strike our eyes, Now bid a Wolsey or a Cromwell rise; Now, with a touch more sacred and refin'd, Call forth a Chesterfield's or Lonsdale's mind. Here sweet or strong may every colour flow, Here let the pencil warm, the canvas glow: Of light and shade provoke the noble strife, And wake each striking feature into life,

PART III

THROUGH ages thus has Satire keenly shin'd: The friend to trath, to virtue, and mankind :

340

Yet the bright flame from virtue ne'er had sprung'
And man was guilty ere the poet sung.
This Muse in silence joy'd each better age,
Till glowing crimes had wak'd her into rage.
Truth saw her honest spleen with new delight,
And bade her wing her shafts, and urge their flight.
First on the sons of Greece she prov'd her art,
And Sparta felt the fierce Iambic dart.
To Latium next, avenging Satire flew ;
The flaming falchion rough Lucilius drew,
With dauntless warmth in Virtue's cause engag'd,
And conscious villains trembled as he rag'd.

370

380

Then sportive Horace caught the generous fire; For Satire's bow resign'd the sounding lyre; Each arrow polish'd in his hand was seen, And, as it grew more polish'd, grew more keen. His art, conceal'd in study'd negligence, Politely sly, cajol'd the foes of sense; He seem'd to sport and trifle with the dart, But, while he sported, drove it to the heart. In graver strains majestic Persius wrote, Big with a ripe exuberance of thought : Greatly sedate, contemn'd a tyrant's reign, And lash'd Corruption with a calin disdain. More ardent eloquence, and boundless rage, Inflam'd bold Juvenal's exalted page. His mighty numbers aw'd corrupted Rome, And swept audacious Greatness to its doom; The headlong torrent, thundering from on high, Rent the proud rock that lately brav'd the sky. But to the fatal victor of mankind,

390

Swoln Luxury!--pale Ruin stalks behind!
As countless insects from the north-cast pour,
To blast the Spring, and ravage every flower;
So barbarous millions spread contagious death:
The sickening laurel wither'd at their breath.
Deep Superstition's night the skies o'erhung,
Beneath whose baleful dews the poppy sprung, 400
No longer Genius woo'd the Nine to love,
But Dulness nodded in the Muse's grove:
Wit, spirit, freedom, were the sole offence,
Nor aught was held so dangerous as sense.

At length, again fair Science shot her ray,
Dawn'd in the skies, and spoke returning day.
Now, Satire, triumph o'er thy flying foe,
Now load thy quiver, string thy slacken'd bow!
'Tis done--See great Erasmus breaks the spell,
And wounds triumphant Folly in her cell!
(In vain the solemn cowl surrounds her face,
Vain all her bigot cant, her sour grimace)
With shame compell'd her lea len throne to quit,
And own the force of Reason urg'd by Wit.

410

'Twas then plain Donne in honest vengeance rose, His wit harmonious, though his rhyme was prose: He 'midst an age of puns and pedants wrote

421

350 With genuine sense, and Roman strength of thought. Yet scarce had Satire well relum'd her tiame, (With grief the Muse records her country's shame) Ere Britain saw the foul revolt commence, And treacherous Wit began her war with Sense, Then rose a shameless mercenary train, Whom latest time shall view with just disdain: A race fantastic, in whose gaudy line Untutor'd thought and tinsel beauty shine: Wit's shatter'd mirror lies in fragments bright, 360 Reflects not Nature, but confounds the sight. Dry morals the court-poet blush'd to sing; 'Twas all his praise to say "the oddest thing." 430 Proud for a jest obscene, a patron's nod,

To martyr Virtue, or blaspheme his God

Ill-fated Dryden! who, unmov'd, can see Th' extremes of wit and meanness join'd in thee? Flames that could mount, and gain their kindred Low creeping in the putrid sink of Vice: [skies A Muse whom Wisdom woo'd, but woo'd in vain, The pimp of Power, the prostitute to Gain: Wreaths, that should deck fair Virtue's form alone, To strumpets, traitors, tyrants, vilely thrown : 440 Unrival'd parts, the scorn of honest fame; And genius rise, a monument of shanie!

More happy France: immortal Boileau there Supported Genius with a sage's care: Him with her love propitious Satire blest, And breath'd her airs divine into his breast: Fancy and Sense to form his line conspire, And faultless Judgment guides the purest fire.

But see, at length, the British genius smile, And shower her bounties o'er her favour'd isle: 450 Behold for Pope she twines the laurel crown, And centers every poet's power in one : Each Roman's force adorns his various page; Gay smiles, collected strength, and manly rage. Despairing Guilt and Dulness loath the sight, As spectres vanish at approaching light: In this clear mirror with delight we view Each image justly fine, and boldly true:

460

Here Vice, dragg'd forth by Truth's supreme decree,
Beholds and hates her own deformity;
While self seen Virtue in the faithful line
With modest joys surveys her form divine.

But oh, what thoughts, what nainbers shall I find,
But faintly to express the poet's mind!
Who yonder stars' effulgence can display,
Unless he dip his pencil in the ray?
Who paint a god, unless the god inspire?
What catch the lightning, but the speed of fire?
So, mighty Pope, to make thy genius known,
All power is weak, all numbers-but thy own. 470
Each Muse for thee with kind contention strove,
For thee the Graces left th' Idalian grove;
With watchful fondness o'er thy cradle hung,
Attun'd thy voice, and form'd thy infant tongue.
Next, to her bard majestic Wisdom came;
The bard enraptur'd caught the heavenly flame:
With taste superior scorn'd the venal tribe,
Whom fear can sway, or guilty greatness bribe;
At Fancy's call who rear the wanton sail,
Sport with the stream, and trifle in the gale: 480
Sublimer views thy daring spirit bound;
Thy mighty voyage was Creation's round;
Intent new worlds of wisdom to explore,
And bless mankind with Virtue's sacred store;
A nobler joy than wit can give, impart;
And pour a moral transport o'er the heart.
Fantastic wit shoots momentary fires,
And, like a meteor, while we gaze, expires:
Wit, kindled by the sulphurous breath of Vice,
Like the blue lightning, while it shines, destroys:
But genius, fir'd by Truth's eternal ray,
Burns clear and constant, like the source of day:
Like this its beam, prolific and refin'd,
Feeds. warms, inspirits, and exalts the mind;
Mildly dispels each wintery passion's gloom,
And opens all the virtues into bloom.
This praise, immortal Pope, to thee be given.
Thy genius was indeed a gift from Heaven.
Hail, bard unequal'd, in whose deathless line
Reason and wit with strength collected shine; 500
Where matchless wit but wins the second praise,
Lost, nobly lost, in truth's superior blaze,

490

Did friendship e'er mislead thy wandering Muse?
That friendship sure may plead the great excuse:
That sacred friendship which inspir'd thy song,
Fair in defect, and amiably wrong.
Errour like this ev'n Truth cau scarce reprove;
'Tis almost virtue when it flows from love.

519

Ye deathless names, ye sons of endless praise, By virtue crown'd with never-fading bays! Say, shall an artless Muse, if you inspire, Light her pale lamp at your immortal fire? Or if, O Warburton, inspir'd by you, The daring Muse a nobler path pursue, By you inspir'd, on trembling pinions soar, The sacred founts of social bliss explore, In her bold numbers chain the tyrant's rage, And bid her country's glory fire her page; If such her fate, do thou, fair Truth, descend, And watchful guard her in an honest end: Kindly severe, instruct her equal line To court no friend, nor own a foe but thine. But if her giddy eye should vainly quit Thy sacred paths, to run the maze of Wit; If her apostate heart should e'er incline To offer incense at Corruption's shrine; Urge, urge thy power, the black attempt confound, And dash the smoaking censer to the ground. Thus aw'd to fear, instructed bards may see That guilt is doom'd to sink in infainy.

AN

ESSAY ON MAN:

TO H. ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE

THE DESIGN.

520

530

HAVING proposed to write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use my lord Bacon's expression) come home to men's business and bosoms," I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering man in the abstract, his nature, and his state; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind as in that of the body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last; and I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice, more than advanced the theory of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines scemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short, yet not imperfect, system of ethics,

This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but it is true; I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published is only to be considered as a general map of man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Consequently, these Epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, observe their effects, may be a task more able.

AN ESSAY ON MAN,

and to

throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that reason alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIII. How much farther this order and subor dination 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 such a desire, ver. 250. X. The consequence of all the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, ver. 281, to the end,

EPISTLE I.

AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things

To low ambition and the pride of Kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan: A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot; Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. agree-Try what the open, what the covert yield; Together let us beat this ample field, The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise: Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man.

IN FOUR EPISTLES, TO H. ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE.

Or man in the abstract.-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations of systems and things, ver. 17, &c. II; That man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited 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 state, that all his happiness in the present depends, ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the cause of man's errour and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of his dispensations, ver. 109, &c. V. The absurdity of concejting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, ver. 131, &c. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against 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 possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miserable, ver. 173, &c. VII. That

14

20

I. Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. [known,
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
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 just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?
II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thos
find,

Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made
Taller or weaker than the weeds they shade;
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?

30

40

Of systems possible, if 'tis confest, That Wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree; Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain, There must be, somewhere, such a rank as man:

And all the question (wrangle e'er so 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.
In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
housand movements scarce one purpose gain:
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

His soul proud Science never taught to stray 50 Far as the solar walk, or milky way;

60

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains

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 Egypt's god:
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, suffering, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought:
70
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,
What matter, soon or late, or here, or there?
The blest to day is as completely so,
As who began a thousand years ago,

[Fate,

३०

III Heaven from all creatures hides the book of All but the page prescrib'd, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood. Oh blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven : Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

90

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never Is, but always To he blest: The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100

VARIATIONS.

In the former editions, ver. 64.

Now wears a garland an Egyptian god.
After ver. 68, the following lines in the first edition.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest to day is as completely so,
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 should die as Cæsar bleed,

Ver. 93, in the first folio and quarto,

What bliss above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy bliss below.

110

Yet simple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler Heaven
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,
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 sport or gust,
Yet say, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone ingross not Heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
120
Snatch'd from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge bis justice, be the god of God.
In Pride, in reasoning Pride, our errour lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies,
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods,
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel :
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause,

130

V. Ask for hat end the heavenly bodies shine,.
Earth for whose use ? Pride answers, "Tis for mines
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, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool Earth, my canopy the skies." 140
But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No" ('tis reply'd)" the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws;

Th' exceptions few; some change since all begun i
And what created perfect?" Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can man do less? 15Q
As much that end a constant course requires
Of showers and sun-shine, as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design,
Why then a Borgia, or a Cataline;

Who knows, but he whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storins;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,
[160
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride our very reasoning springs;
Account for moral as for natural things:

VARIATIONS,

After ver. 108, in the first edition:

But does he say 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

Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right, is to submit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind,
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But all subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The general order, since the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in man.

180

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

earth,

240

250

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
170 Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing.-On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike,
And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven'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 dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head? 260
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another in this general frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing mind of all ordains.

[soar,
VI. What would this man? Now upward will he
And, little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had be the powers of all?
Nature to these without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not blest with all?
The bliss of man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No powers of body or of soul to share,
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 given,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the Heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

190

If Nature thunder'd in his opening cars,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
200 That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the Earth, as in th' ethereal frame; 270
Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows, in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart,
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt scraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. 280
X. Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee,
Submit. In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.

VII. Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends:
Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass: 210
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam ;
Of smell, the hea llong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood!
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew!
How Instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compar'd half-reasoning elephant with thine!
'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier!
For ever separate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflection how allied;
What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy Reason all these powers in one? -

220

[blocks in formation]

Ethereal essence, spirit, substance, man.
230 After ver. 282, in the MS.

Reason, to think of God, when she pretends,
Begins a censor, an adorer ends.

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