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.

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
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;

106

Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Benind 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.

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,
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;

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
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.

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.
The general order, since the world began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.
VI. What would this man?

he soar,

170

Now upward will

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.

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.