How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot: Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned; Labour and rest, that equal periods keep; 211 "Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep; "2

Desires composed, affections ever even;

Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heaven.

Grace shines around her with serenest beams, And whispering angels prompt her golden dreams.

For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms, 217
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes;
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring;
For her white virgins hymenæals sing;
To sounds of heavenly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.

220

224

Far other dreams my erring soul employ, Far other raptures, of unholy joy. When at the close of each sad, sorrowing day, Fancy restores what vengeance snatched

But vindicate the ways of God to man.

15

I. Say first, of God above, or man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of man, what see we but his station here From which to reason or to which refer? 20 Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known,

'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples every star,

25

4I

Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove.
Of systems possible, if 'tis confessed
That wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as

man:

45

And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has placed him wrong? 50
Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though laboured on with pain,

A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;

In God's, one single can its end produce; 55
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. 60

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

80

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?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his
blood.

Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, 85
That each may fill the circle marked by
Heaven:

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 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: 95
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored 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 given,
Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler
Heaven;

102

How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine !

'Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier, Forever separate, yet forever near ! Remembrance and reflection how allied; 225 What thin partitions sense from thought divide:

And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? 230
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these powers in one?

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul; That, changed through all, and yet in all the

same;

Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; 2 Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 271 Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent,

Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; 276 As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. X. Cease then, nor order imperfection

P. Shut, shut the door, good John !1 fatigued,
I said?

Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The Dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam,2 or Parnassus,3 is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, 5
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?

They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide;

By land, by water, they renew the charge, They stop the chariot, and they board the

barge.

10

No place is sacred, not the church is free; E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me: Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,

Happy to catch me just at dinner-time.

Is there a parson, much bemused in beer,15 A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross, Who pens a stanza, when he should engross? Is there, who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls

With desperate charcoal round his darkened walls?

All fly to Twit'nam 5 and in humble strain 21 Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain. Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damn'd works the

If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they, want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, 161 And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite; Yet he'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds,

From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds.

Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, 165

Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, E'en such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.

Were others angry: I excused them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.

A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; 175 But each man's secret standard in his mind, That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This, who can gratify? for who can guess? The bard whom pilfered Pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, 180 Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains from hard-bound brains, eight lines

a year;

He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left;

And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning, 185 Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;

And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these, my modest satire bade translate, 189
And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.
How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and
chafe !

And swear, not Addison himself was safe.

Peace to all such ! but were there one whose fires

True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blessed with each talent and each art to please,

195 And born to write, converse, and live with

ease:

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the

1 verses

2 poetry

throne,

198

View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, 205
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and Templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise -
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he!

210

630

In vain, in vain the all-composing hour Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the power. She comes! she comes ! the sable throne behold Of Night primeval and of Chaos old! Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,1 635 The sickening stars fade off th' ethereal plain; As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppressed, Closed one by one to everlasting rest: 2 Thus at her felt approach, and secret might, Art after art goes out, and all is night. See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head! Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.

640

1 Cf. the incantations of Medea, as told by Gower. 2 See the story in Gayley, pp. 92-94.

500

care, Not that alone, but all the works of war. How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd,

And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,

Attaint the lustre of my former name,
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame?
My early youth was bred to martial pains,
My soul impels me to th' embattled plains:
Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
And guard my father's glories and my own.
Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates,
(How my heart trembles while my tongue
relates!)

571

The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,

And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
My mother's death, the ruin of my kind,
Not Priam's hoary hairs defil'd with gore,
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore,
As thine, Andromache! Thy griefs I dread:
I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led,
In Argive1 looms our battles to design, 580
And woes of which so large a part was thine!
To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring
The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring!
There, while you groan beneath the load of
life,

They cry, 'Behold the mighty Hector's wife!'
Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to

see,

Embitters all thy woes by naming me.

1 Grecian