Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though labour'd on with pain, A thousand 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.
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, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity.
Then say not, man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault; Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought; 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.
III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, 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. O blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n; 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.
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.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way; Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n; Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry 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 wings, 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 cry, 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, Re-judge his justice, be the god of God!
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error 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.
V. Ask for what end the heavenly 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 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 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 reply'd) the first Almighty Cause "Acts not by partial, but by general laws; "Th' exceptions few; some change since all began " And what created perfect?" Why then man? If the great end be human happiness, Then nature deviates: and can man do less? 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 for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, Why then a Borgia or a Catiline?
Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Cesar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs; Account for moral, as for nat'ral things: Why charge we Heav'n 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;
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 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 pow'rs of all? Nature to these, without profusion kind, The proper organs, proper pow'rs 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 bless'd with all?
The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is, not to act or think beyond mankind; 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, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
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 thunder'd in his opening ears,
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
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