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So Man, who here feems principal alone,

Perhaps acts fecond to fome Sphere unknown, Touches fome Wheel, or verges to fome Gole; 'Tis but a Part we fee, and not a Whole.

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When the proud Steed fhall know, why Man restrains
His fiery Course, or drives him o'er the Plains ;
When the dull Ox why now he breaks the Clod,
Now wears a Garland, an Ægyptian God;
Then shall Man's Pride and Dullness comprehend
His Actions, Paffions, Beings, Ufe and End;
Why doing, fuff'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 Being measur'd to his State, and Place,
His Time a Moment, and a Point his Space.

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Heav'n from all Creatures hides the Book of Fate, All but the Page, prefcrib'd their prefent State;

From Brutes what Men, from Men what Spirits know, 75
Or who could fuffer being here below?
The Lamb thy Riot dooms to bleed to day,
Had he thy Reafon, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry Food,
And licks the Hand juft 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 Systems, into Ruin hurl'd,

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.

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Hope fprings eternal in the human Breaft;
Man never is, but always to be bleft.
The Soul uneafy and confin'd at home,

Refts, and expatiates, in a Life to come.

Lo! the poor Indian, whofe untutor'd Mind

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Sees God in Clouds, or bears him in the Wind;

His Soul, proud Science never taught to ftray
Far as the Solar Walk, or Milky-Way,

Yet

Yet fimple Nature to his Hope has giv'n
Behind the cloud-top'd Hill an humbler Heaven,
Some fafer World in Depth of Woods embrac❜d,
Some happier Island in the watry Waste ;
Where Slaves once more their native Land behold,
No Fiends torment, no Christians thirst for Gold.
To be, contents this natural Defire,
He afks no Angel's Wing, or Seraph's Fire,
But thinks, admitted to that equal Sky,
His faithful Dog fhall bear him Company.
Gg, wifer Thou! and in thy Scale of Senfe
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 Guft,
Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjuft;
If Man, alone, engrofs not Heav'ns 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 Reas'ning, Pride (my Friend) our Error lies:
All quit their Sphere, and rush into the Skies;
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 wifhes to invert the Laws

Of ORDER, fins against th' eternal Cause.

Afk for what End the heavenly Bodies shine?

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Earth for whose Ufe? Pride antwers," "Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial Pow'r, "Suckles each Herb, and fwells out ev'ry Flow'r; 130 "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 gushes from a thousand Springs; "Seas roll to waft me, Suns 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 Suns when livid Deaths defcend, When Earthquakes swallow, or when Tempests sweep Towns to one Grave, and Nations to the Deep? 140 "No

"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Caufe "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral Laws; "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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And Nature deviates, how can Man do lefs?

As much that End a conftant Course requires

Of Show'rs and Sun-fhine, as of Man's Defires;
As much eternal Springs and cloudless Skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm and wife.

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If Plagues or Earthquakes break not Heaven's Defign, Why then a Borgia, or a Cataline?

From Pride, from Pride, our very Reas'ning fprings ; Account for moral, as for nat'ral Things;

Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit? 155
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.
The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

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What would this Man? now upward will he foar, 165
And little less than Angel, would be more;
Now looking downward, jnft as griev'd, appears
To want the Strength of Bulls, the Fur of Bears.
Made for his Ufe all Creatures if he call,

Say what their Ufe, had he the Pow'rs of all?
Nature to thefe, without Profufion kind,

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The proper Organs, proper Pow'rs affign'd;
Each feeming Want compenfated of Courfe,
Here, with Degrees of Swiftnefs, there, of Force;
All in exact Proportion to the State;

Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each Beast, each Infect, 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 blefs'd with all?

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The Blifs of Man (could Pride that Bleffing find)

Is not to think, or act, beyond Mankind;

No

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No Powr's of Body or of Soul to share,
But what his Nature and his State can bear.
Why has not Man a microscopic Sight?
For this plain Reaton, Man is not a Mite:
Say what th' Advantage of fo fine an Eye?
T' infpect a Mote, not comprehend the Sky:
Or Touch, fo tremblingly alive all o'er ?
To fmart, and agonize at every Pore:
Or quick Effluvia darting through the Brain?
To fink opprefs'd with aromatic Pain.

If Nature thunder'd in his opening Ears,

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And ftunn'd them with the Mufick of the Spheres,
How would he wish, that Heaven had left him still 195
The whifp'ring Zephir, and the purling Rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wife,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies ?

For, as Creation's ample Range extends,
The Scale of fenfual, mental Pow'rs afcends :
Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial Race
From the green Myriads in the peopled Grafs !
What Modes of Sight, betwixt each wide Extreme,
The Mole's dim Curtain, and the Lynx's Beam:
Of Smell 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,

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Feels at each Thread, and lives along the Line: 210
In the nice Bee, what Senfe fo fubtly true,

From pois'nous Herbs extracts the healing Dew?
How Inftinct varies! in the groveling Swine,
Compar'd half-reas'ning Elephant with thine.
"Twixt that, and Reafon, what a nice Barrier,
For ever fep'rate, yet for ever near:
Remembrance and Reflection, how ally'd ;
What thin Partitions Senfe from Thought divide:
And middle Natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' infuperable Line:
Without the juft Gradation could they be
Subjected these to those, or all to thee?
The Pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy Reason all thofe Pow'rs in one?

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See,

See, thro' this Air, this Ocean, and this Earth, 225
All Matter quick, and bursting into Birth.
Above, how high progreffive Life may go !
Around how wide! How deep extend below!
Vaft Chain of Being! which from God began,
Nature's Etherial, Human, Angel, Man,

Beast, Bird, Fish, Infect, what no Eye can fee!
No Glafs can reach from Infinite to thee!
From thee to Nothing !---On fuperior Pow'rs
Were we to prefs, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full Creation leave a Void,

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Where, one Step broken, the great Scale's deftroy'd :
From Nature's Chain whatever Link you ftrike,
Tenth, or ten Thoufandth, breaks the Chain alike.
And if each Syftem in Gradation roll,

Alike effential to th' amazing Whole;
The leaft Confufion, but in one, not all
Thy Syftem only, but the Whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her Orbit fly,
Planets, and Suns, rush lawless thro' the Sky,
Let ruling Angels from their Spheres be hurl'd,
Being on Being wreck'd, and World on World,
Heav'ns whole Foundation to the Centre nod,
And Nature tremble to the Throne of God:

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All this dread ORDER break---For whom? For thee!

Vile Worm !---O Madness! Pride! Impiety!

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What if the Foot, ordain'd the Duft to tread,

Or Hand to toil, aspir'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 gen'ral Frame :
Juft as abfurd to mourn the Tafks or Pains,
That great directing MIND of ALL ordains.

All are but Parts of one ftupendous Whole,
Whole Body Nature is, and God the Soul;
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame,
Great in the Earth, as in th' etherial Frame,
Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the Breeze,
Glows in the Stars, and bloffoms in the Trees,
Lives thro' all Life, extends thro' all Extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unfpent,

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Breaths

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