75

See, fierce Belinda on the Baron flies, With more than usual lightning in her eyes; Nor feared the chief th' unequal fight to try, Who sought no more than on his foe to die. But this bold lord with manly strength endued,

She with one finger and a thumb subdued: 80 Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw; [The gnomes direct, to every atom just, The pungent grains of titillating dust.] Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows,

85

eyes:

(So Rome's great founder to the heavens withdrew,

125

To Proculus1 alone confessed in view)
A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,
And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.
Not Berenice's locks 2 first rose so bright,
The heavens bespangling with dishevelled
light.

1 Cf. Livy, I, 6 2 The wife of Ptolemy Euergetes dedicated her hair for the safe return of her husband; upon its disappearance the astronomer Conon reported that it had been changed to the constellation Coma Berenices.

[The sylphs behold it kindling as it flies, 131 And pleased pursue its progress through the skies.]

This the beau monde shall from the Mall 2 survey,

And hail with music its propitious ray.

1 [This the blest lover shall for Venus take, 135 And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake.2] This Partridge3 soon shall view in cloudless skies,

4

When next he looks through Galileo's eyes; And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom

The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome. 140 Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair,

Which adds new glory to the shining sphere!
Not all the tresses that fair head can boast,
Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost.
For, after all the murders of your eye, 145
When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;
When those fair suns shall set, as set they
must,

And all those tresses shall be laid in dust: 148
This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.

Shrines where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep,

And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!

Though cold like you, unmoved and silent grown,

I have not yet forgot myself to stone.
All is not Heaven's while Abelard has part,25
Still rebel nature holds out half my heart;
Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse re-
strain,

Nor tears, for ages taught to flow in vain.

Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose, That well-known name awakens all my woes. Oh, name forever sad! forever dear! 31 Still breathed in sighs, still ushered with a tear.

I tremble too, where'er my own I find;
Some dire misfortune follows close behind.
Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow,
Led through a sad variety of woe:

35

Now warm in love, now withering in my bloom,

Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!
There stern religion quenched th' unwilling

flame,

39

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 satellites1 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

Some safer world in depths of woods embraced, 105

Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; 110
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

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 3 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

cause:

Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, 25 And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

3

Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong,

The world had wanted many an idle song)

1 Pope's servant 2 a hospital for lunatics figuratively the abode of poets a place in which insolvent debtors lived, free from arrest; on Sundays they could go anywhere without fear of arrest 5 Pope's villa at Twickenham, famous for its romantic garden and grotto Dr. Arbuthnot