Where all must full or not coherent be, Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain, In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain, 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. When the proud steed shall know why man restrains Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault; What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state : From brutes what men, from men what spirits know : 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? 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 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; Man never is, but always to be blest: The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. Lo, the poor Indian whose untutor'd 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 giv❜n, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n; Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd, Where slaves once more their native land behold, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense, And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against th' eternal cause. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? pride answers, ''Tis for mine: 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, But errs not nature from this gracious end Th' exceptions few; some change since all began: If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design, Who knows but He, whose hand the light'ning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind, Or turns young Ammon* loose to scourge mankind ? From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs; Account for moral as for natural things: *Alexander the Great. Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit ? Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, What would this man? Now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all? Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper pow'rs assigned; Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: Is Heav'n unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleas'd with nothing, if not blest with all? The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; No pow'rs of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. |