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Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,

A thousand movements fcarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one fingle can its end produce;
Yet ferves to fecond too fome other use.
So Man, who here feems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to some sphere unknown,
Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

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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 Ægypt's God:

Then shall Man's pride and dulnefs comprehend 65 His actions', paffions', being's, ufe and end;

Why doing, fuff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a flave, the next a deity.

Then fay not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault; Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought:

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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 fphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here or there?

The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

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As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:

VARIATIONS.

In the former Editions, ver. 64.

Now wears a garland an Ægyptian God.

After ver. 68. the following lines in the first Edition.

If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here or there?

The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

As who began ten thousand years ago.

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could fuffer Being here below?

The lan b thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food,

And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv❜n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

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And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

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Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be bleft.
The foul, uneafy, and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo,
the poor Indian whofe untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His foul, proud Science never taught to fray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;
Yet fimple Nature to his hope has giv❜n,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watry waste,

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VARIATION S.

After ver. 88, in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's Gnat fhould die as Cæfar bleed.

In the firft Folio and Quarto,

What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blifs below.

Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

IV. Go, wifer thou! and in thy fcale of fenfe,
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Deftroy all creatures for thy sport or guft,
Yet cry, If Man 's unhappy, God's unjust ;
If Man alone ingrofs not Heav'n'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 bleft abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws

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Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Cause.

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V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,

Earth for whofe use? Pride answers, ""Tis for mine:

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 108. in the first Edition;

But does he fay the Maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what state he wou'd;
Himself alone high Heav'n's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where?

VER. 131. Afk for what end, etc.] If there be any fault in these lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but a want of exactness in expreffing it. It is the highest abfurdity to think that Earth is Man's footftool, his canopy the Skies, and the beavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not fo, to fuppole fruits and minerals given for this end.

"For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
"Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
"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, funs to light me rife;
"My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies.”

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But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, 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 gen'ral laws;

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"Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect ?"-Why then Man ? If the great end be human Happiness,

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Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs?
As much that end a conftant course requires
Of fhow'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wife.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's defign,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

156 Who knows but he, whofe hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms; Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loose to fcourge mankind? 160

VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, etc.] "While comets move in "very eccentric orbs, in all manner of pofitions, blind Fate could "never make all the planets move one and the fame way in orbs "concentric; fome inconfiderable irregularities excepted, which "may have rifen from the mutual actions of comets and pla"nets upon one another, and which will be apt to increafe, "till this fyftem wants a reformation." Sir Ifaac Newton's Optics, Queft. ult.

From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning fprings;
Account for moral as for natʼral things:

Why charge we Heav'n in thofe, in these acquit?
In both, to reafon right, is to fubmit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here ;
That never air or ocean felt the wind,
That never paffion difcompos'd the mind.
But all fubfifts by elemental strife;
And paffions are the elements of Life.

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The gen❜ral ORDER, fince the whole began,

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he foar, And little lefs than Angel, would be more;

Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears 175
To want the ftrength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,

Say what their ufe, had he the pow'rs of all ?
Nature to thefe, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each feeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees or swiftnefs, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the ftate;

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Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Each beaft, each infect, happy in its own:

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Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?

Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bleft with all?

VER. 169. But all fubfifts, etc.] See this fubject extended in Ep. ii. from ver. 90 to 112, 155, etc.

VER. 174, And little less than Angel, etc.] Thou haft made him a little lower than the Angels, and haft crowned him with glory and benour. Pfalm viii. 9.

VER. 182. Here with degrees of Swiftness, etc. c.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that, in proportion as they are formed for itrength, their fwiftnefs is leffened; or as they are formed for swiftnefs, their ftrength is abated.

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