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EPISTLE III.

ERE then we reft; "the Universal Cause

"Acts to one end, but acts by various laws." In all the madnefs of fuperfluous health,

The train of pride, the impudence of wealth,

Let this great truth be prefent night and day;
But most be prefent, if we preach or pray.

Look round our World; behold the chain of Love

Combining all below, and all above.

See plastic Nature working to this end,

'The fingle atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endued,

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Prefs to one centre ftill, the General Good.
See dying vegetables life fuftain,

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See life diffolving vegetate again :

All forms that perish other forms fupply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the fea of Matter borne
They rife, they break, and to that sea return.
Nothing is foreign; Parts relate to whole ;
One all-extending, all-preferving Soul
Connects each being, greatest with the leaft;
Made Beaft in aid of Man, and Man of Beaft;

VARIATION.

Ver. 1. In feveral Edit. in 4tó.

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All

Learn, Dulnefs, learn!" The Univerfal Cause," &c.

All ferv'd, all ferving: nothing ftands alone;

The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food!

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Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,

For him as kindly fpread the flowery lawn:
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note.
The bounding steed you pompously beftride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain?
The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harveft of the golden year?
Part pays, and juftly, the deferving steer;
The hog, that plows not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

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ufe!" 45

Know, Nature's children all divide her case;
The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear.
While Man exclaims, "See all things for: my
"Sec man for mine !" replies a pamper'd goose :
And just as short of reafon He must fall,

Who thinks all made for one, not one for all,

Grant

VARIATION,

After ver. 46. in the former Editions,

What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!
All this he knew; but not that twas to eat him.
As far as Goofe could judge, he reason'd right;
But as to Man, miftook the matter quite,

Grant that the powerful still the weak controul;
Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole:
Nature that Tyrant checks; he only knows,
And helps, another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, fpare the dove?
Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings ?

Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beafts his paftures, and to fish his floods;
For fome his intereft prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:
All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy
Th' extenfive bleffing of his luxury,
That very life his learned hunger craves,

He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being, makes it bleft:
Which fees no more the ftroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch ethereal flain.
The creature had his feast of life before;

Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!
To each unthinking being, Heaven a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To Man imparts it; but with fuch a view

As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:
The hour conceal'd, and fo remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never feeming near.
Great ftanding miracle! that Heaven affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

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II. Whether

II. Whether with Reason, or with Inftinct bleft,

Know, all enjoy that power which fuits them beft; 85 To blifs alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full Inftinct is th' unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need befide?
Reason, however able, cool at beft,

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Cares not for fervice, or but ferves when preft,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honeft Inftinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit;

While ftill too wide or fhort is human Wit;
Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reafon labours at in vain.

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This too ferves always, Reafon never long :
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing powers
One in their nature, which are two in ours!
And Reafon raise o'er Inftinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man.

Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To fhun their poison, and to chuse their food?
Prefcient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand?

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Who

VARIATION.

After ver. 84. in the MS.

While Man, with opening views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge strays:
Too weak to chufe, yet chufing ftill in haste,
One moment gives the pleafure and distaste.

Who made the spider parallels defign,

Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the ftork, Columbus-like, explore
Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before;
Who calls the council, ftates the certain day,
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper blifs, and fets its proper bounds:
But as he fram'd a Whole, the Whole to bless,
On mutual Wants, built mutual Happiness:
So from the firft, eternal ORDER ran,
And creature link'd to creature, man to man.
Whate'er of life all-quickening æther keeps,

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Or breathes through air, or fhoots beneath the deeps,
Or pours profufe on earth, one nature feeds
The vital flame, and fwells the genial feeds.
Not man alone, but all that roam the wood,
Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood,
Each loves itself, but not itfelf alone,
Each fex defires alike, till two are one.
Nor ends the pleafure with the fierce embrace;
They love themfelves, a third time, in their race.
Thus beaft and bird their common charge attend, 25
The mothers nurfe it, and the fires defend;

The young difmifs'd to wander earth or air,
There ftops the Instinct, and there ends the care;
The link diffolves, each feeks a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds, another race.

A longer care Man's helpless kind demands ;
That longer care contracts more lafting bands:

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Reflection,

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