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 the Eternal Cause.

130

V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ""Tis for mine;

135

"For me, kind nature wakes her genial power, "Suckles each herb and spreads out ev'ry flow'r. "Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew "The juice nectarius, 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;

140

My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." 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 replied, the first Almighty Cause

"Acts not by partial, but by general laws;

145

"The exceptions few; some change since all begun :

129. He who, &c. sins. When but can be changed into only, without injuring the sense, it is an adverb.

141. But does not nature err from this gracious end? viz: the blessings enumerated above.

?created

"And what created perfect?" Why then man
If the great end be human happiness,
Then nature deviates; and can man do less? 150
As much that end a constant course requires

Of showers and sunshine, as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men forever temperate, calm, and wise. [sign,
If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's de-
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline? [forms,
Who knows, but He whose hand the lightning
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride our very reasoning springs:
Account for moral, as for natural things:

162
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 nor ocean felt the wind,
That never passion discompos'd the mind.

Borgia Ceasar. The son of as

165

151-153. That end as much requires eternal springs, &c., as it requires that men should be forever temperate, &c.

156. Catiline and Borgia were two of the most abandoned and bloody demagogues, that ever lived.

158. Who knows but he, whose hand, &c., pours? 159--160. Julius Cæsar is here meant. Alexander the Great was vainly styled the son of Jupiter Ammon: hence he is called young Ammon.

166. If all were harmony there, (i. e. in the operations of nature,) and all virtue here, (i. e. in the actions of men.)

But all subsists by elemental strife;

And passions are the elements of life.

The general order, since the world began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

170

VI. What would this man? Now upward will

he soar,

174

180

And, little less than angel, would be more?
Now looking downward, just as grieved 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 he the powers of all?
Nature to these without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assigned;
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 bless'd with all?
The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)

185

173. What would this man do or have; or what wishes this man. When the interrogative is not directly the nom. to the verb, there being no other nom. case, it is either the nom. after the verb, governed by it, or by a prep. expressed or understood.

179-181. Nature, being kind without profusion, assigned the proper organs, &c., and compensated each seeming want. 184. To add and to abate seem to imply a passive signi fication-Nothing to be added and nothing to be abated.

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,

190

195

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?

If nature thundered in his opening ears,

200

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that heav'n had left him still
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise, 205

190. Not to act or think beyond mankind is a substantive phrase used as a nom. after is, and to share no powers, is connected with it.

193-204. These lines have very often been misunderstood, and turned out of their true meaning. The poet adverts to the five senses, in order; asking first, Why man has not a microscopic eye, i. e. an eye formed to see the smallest objects, as are those of flies? and then answers, because man is not a fly. On the principle of optics, if we could see much more minutely, we could not take in so large a space of the heavens at one view; as a fly cannot see the whole of one side of a building upon which he may light. What would be the use, if finer touch were given, if this keener sensation cause or make us smart and agonize at every pore. Smell is supposed to be occasioned by some effluvia passing through the brain; and what the use, were this sense so quick, or the effect of these passing effluvia so powerful, as to make us die of the smell of a rose in aromatic pain?

Alike in what it gives, and what denies?
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

ue

What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong 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:

that

^

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!
Forever separate, yet forever near!

215

211. How many modes or degrees of sight are there between the dimness of the mole's, and the sharpness of the lynx's? What may be made a com. rel. or a demonstrative pronoun.

213. The lion is said to be defective in the sense of smell, so much so as not to pursue his prey by scent, as de the hounds.

215. The life that fills the flood-fishes, which are in a degree destitute of hearing.

217. It (i. e. the spider's touch) feels.

222. The elephant is here addressed, and called halfreasoning, on account of his superior sagacity, compared with other animals.

223. "Twixt that and reason, i. e. 'twixt the instinct of the elephant and reason