Or man in the abstract.-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own fyftem, being ignorant of the relations of fyftems and things, ver. 17, &c. II. That man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being fuited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown, ver. 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future ftate, that all his happiness in the prefent depends, ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the caufe of man's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitnefs, perfection or imperfection, juftice or unjustice, of his difpenfations, ver. 109, &c. V. The abfurdity of conceiting himself the final caufe of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, ver. 131, &c. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against providence, while on the one hand he demands the perfection of the angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the brutes; though, to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, ver. 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole vifible world, an univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which caufes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. The gradations of sense, inflinct, thought, reflection, reafon; that reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIH. How much farther this order and fubordination of living creatures may extend above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be deftroyed, ver. 233. IX. The extravagance, madnefs, and pride of fuch a defire, ver. 250. X. The confequence of all the abfolute fubmiffion due to providence, both as to our prefent and future ftate, ver. 281, &c. to the end.

AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
1.et us (fince life can little more fupply
Than just to look about us, and to die),
Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of man;

ΙΟ

A mighty maze! but not without a plan : [shoot;
A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Eye nature's walks, fhoot folly as it flics,

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can ; But vindicate the ways of God to man.

I. Say firft, of God above, or man below, What can we reafon, but from what we know? Of man, what fee we but his station here, From which to reafon, or to which refer? Through worlds unnumber'd, though the God be known,

20

'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compofe one universe,
Obferve how fyftem into fyftem runs,
What other planets circle other funs,
What vary'd being peoples every star,
May tell why heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?
II. Prefumptuous man! the reafon would'st
thou find,

Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and fo blind?
First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs?
Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or weaker than the weeds they shade? 40
Or afk of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's fatellites are lefs than Jove?

Of fyftems poffible, if 'tis confeft,
That Wildon Infinite muft form the beft,
Where all must fall or not coherent be,
And all that rifes, rife in due degree; }
Then, in the scale of reafoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as man :
And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long),
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

50

Refpecting 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 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 principle alone, Perhaps acts fecond to fome sphere unknown, Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal; 'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole. When the proud ftecd fhall know why man reftrains

60

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 fhall man's pride and dulnefs comprehend
His actions', paffions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, fuffering, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a flave, the next a deity.

VARIATIONS.

In the former editions, ver. 64,
Now wears a garland an Egyptian god.

After ver. 68, the following lines in the firft edition.

If to be perfect in a certain fphere,

Then fay not man's imperfect, heaven in fault; Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought: 70 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, foon or late, or here, or there? The bleft to-day is as completely fo, As who began a thousand years ago.

Ill. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,

All but the page prefcrib'd, their prefent ftate: From brutes what men, from men what fpirits

90

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions
foar;

Wait the great teacher death; and God adore.
What future blifs, 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; 100
His foul proud fcience never taught to ftray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;
Yet fimple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier ifland in the watery waste,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Chriftians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural defire,

He asks no angel's wing, no feraph'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;

VARIATIONS.

The bleft to-day is as completely so,
As who began ten thousand years ago.
After ver. 88, in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's gnat should die as Cæfar bleed.
Ver. 93, in the first folio and quarto.
What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blifs below.

After ver. 108, in the first edition.
But does he fay the Maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what ftate he wou'd;
Himfelf alone high heaven's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where ?

| Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such ;
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or guft,
Yet fay, if man's unhappy, God's unjuft;
If man alone ingrofs not heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there :
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the god of God.
In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the fkies.
Pride ftill 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
Of order, fins against th' eternal caufe.

120

130

V. Afk for what end the heavenly bodies fhine, Earth for whose use? Pride anfwers, " "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 rofe, renew "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gufhes from a thousand springs; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; "My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the fkies." 140 But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts fweep

Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty caufe "Acts not by partial, but by general laws; "Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began :

66

"And what created perfect ?"-Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then nature deviates; and can man do lefs? 150
As much that end a constant course requires
Of showers and fun-fhine, as of man's defires;
As much eternal fprings and cloudlefs fkies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wife.
If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's defign,
Why then a Borgio, or a Catiline? [forms,
Who knows, but he whofe hand the lightning
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæfar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loofe to fcourge man160

kind? From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs Account for moral as for natural things: Why charge we heaven in thofe, in thefe 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 ftrife; And paffions are the elements of life. The general order, fince the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man. vi. What would this man? Now upward wa

he foar,

And, little less than angel, would be more;

་7༦

Now looking downwards, juft as griev'd appears

To want the ftrength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his ufe all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the powers of all?
Nature to thefe, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper powers affign'd; 180
Each feeming want compenfated of course,
Here with degrees of fwiftnefs, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beaft, each infect, happy in its own:
Is heaven unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom ṛational we call,

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bleft with all? The blifs of man (could pride that bleffing find),

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No powers of body or of foul to share,
But what his nature and his ftate 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 given,

240

Vaft chain of being! which from God began,
Narures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beaft, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can see,
No glafs can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing.-On fuperior powers
Were we to prefs, inferior might on oure;
Or in the full creation leave a void.
Where, one step broken, the great scale's defroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,

Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And if each fyftem in gradation roll

Alike effential to th' amazing whole,

The leaft confufion but in one, not all

250

T' infpect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To fmart and agonife at every pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

200

If nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he with that heaven had left him ftill
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill!
Who finds not providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of fenfual, mental powers afcends :
Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grafs : 210
What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;
Of fmell, the headlong lionefs between,
And hound fagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood!
The spider's touch, how exquifitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what fense fo fubtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew!
How inftinct varies in the grovelling fwine, 221
Compar'd, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and reafon, what a nice barrier!
For ever feparate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied;
What thin partitions fenfe from thought divide !
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' infuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, thefe to thofe, or all to thee?
The powers of all fubdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reafon all these powers in one?
VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this
earth,

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progreffive life may go !

230

IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,

Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd
To ferve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Juft as abfurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this general frame:
Juft as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing mind of all ordains.

260

All are but parts of one ftupendous whole, Whofe body nature is, and God the foul; [fame That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; 270, Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the ftars, and bloffoms in the trees; Lives through all life, extends through all extent; Spreads undivided, operates unfpent; Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt feraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no fmall; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equalls all. 280. X. Ceafe then, nor order imperfection name : Our proper blifs depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, heaven beftows on thee. Submit.In this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as bleft as thou can't bear : Safe in the hand of one difpofing power, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not fee; All difcord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, univerfal good.

295

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 238, Ed. Ift.

Ethereal effence, fpirit, fubftance, man.

After ver. 282, in the MS. Reafon, to think of God, when the pretends,