A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms, or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world! 90 95. Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor❜d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100 His soul, proud science never taught to stray Yet simple nature, to his hope has giv'n Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n, Some safer world, in depth of woods embrac'd, 105 Some happier island in the watr'y 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; 110 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: 115 Say, here he gives too little, there too much; Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, say if man's unhappy, God's unjust, Yet If man, alone, engross not heav'n's high care, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel; 120 125 And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against th' eternal cause. 130 V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine? Earth for whose use ? Pride answers, 'tis for mine: For me kind nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flow'r : 135 140 But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, 'No ('tis reply'd) the first almighty cause 145 Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws; Th' exceptions few; some change since all began : Then nature deviates; and can man do less? If plagues or earthquakes break not heav'ns design, Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? Why charge we heav'n in those, in these acquit? Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, 150 165 And passions are the elements of life. 170 The gen'ral order, since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man. VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downward, just as griev'd appears 175 To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. 180 Each seeming want compensated of course, Here, with degrees of swiftness, there, of force; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: 185 Is heav'n unkind to man, and man alone? 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; 190 No pow'rs 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 giv❜n, 195 T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart, and agonize at ev'ry pore? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, 200 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 still 205 The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill? VII. Far as creation's ample range extends, 210 What modes of sight, betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between, A hound sagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, 215 To that which warbles through the vernal wood: The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine, 220 225 230 VIII. See through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth. 235 Above, how high progressive life may go! Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see, 240 |