The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 85 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 be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. 95 Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100 81. If the lamb, which thy riot dooms, &c. (if he) had thy reason, would he skip and play? He is only a repetition of the subject, and in app. with lamb. 85. Interjections govern both the nom. and obj. of pronouns, but the nom. only of nouns. 87. Who relates to Heaven, which is here used for God, and God, in the end of the line, is connected with who, by the conj. as-or, those nouns which follow the conj. as, and have a like meaning with those to which they are con nected, may be considered in apposition with the same. 92. Wait for the great teacher. By a particular usage of language, the obj. case is put after many verbs which do not pass over to them, as the real objects of an action. His soul proud science never taught to stray 106 Yet simple nature to his hope has given, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. 116 115 IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fanciest 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 engross not heaven's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there; Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Rejudge his justice, be the god of God! In pride, in reasoning pride our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, 120 125 102. To the solar walk, that is, the circuit of the sun. 113. Go, thou, who art wiser than the poor Indian. 115. Call that, imperfection, which thou fanciest to be such. 120. If he be not alone made, &c. then snatch Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, 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; 66 My footstool 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? 145 No, 'tis replied, the first Almighty Cause "Acts not by partial, but by general laws; "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. "And what created perfect?" Why then man? If the great end be human happiness, Then nature deviates; and can man do less? 150 162 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. 163 151-153. 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. he soar, 170 Now upward will And, little less than angel, would be more? Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. 174 180 Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: 185 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) 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. |