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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 strong 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?

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II. Presumptuous Man! the reafon wouldft thou find,
Why form'd fo weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guefs,

Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs?
Ak of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade;
Or afk of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's Satellites are lefs than Jove?

Of Syftems poffible, if 'tis confeft,

That Wisdom infinite must form the beft,
Where all must full or not coherent be,

And all that rifes, rife in due degree;

Then, in the scale of reasoning 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?
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 scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one fingle can its end produce;
Yet ferves to fecond too fome other ufe.

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So

So Man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal;
'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.

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When the proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery courfe, or drives him o'er the plains; When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Ægypt's God: Then shall Man's pride and dulness 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.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought:

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,

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What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?

The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

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As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state :

VARIATIONS.

From

In the former Editions, ver. 64.

Now wears a garland an Ægyptian God.

After ver. 68. the following lines in the firft Edition.

If to be perfect in a certain fphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?

The bleft to-day is as completely so,

As who began ten thousand years ago.

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From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could fuffer Being here below;

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reafon, would he fkip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand juft rais'd to fhed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven :
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a fparrow fall,

Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

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And now a bubble burft, and now a world.

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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! whose untutor’d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

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His

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 88. in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's Gnat fhould 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.

His foul proud Science never taught to stray
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 island in the watery wafte,

Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Chriftians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph'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;
Call imperfection what thou fancy'ft fuch,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy fport or gust,
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
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 fphere, and rufh into the fkies.

VARIATIONS.

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;
Himself alone high Heaven's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where?

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Pride

Pride still is aiming at the blest 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 Cause.

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V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whofe ufe? 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 rose, 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, funs to light me rife;

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My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies." But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause "Acts not by partial, but by general laws;

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"Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect?"-Why then Man? If the great end be human Happiness,

Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less?
As much that end a conftant courfe requires

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Of fhowers and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;

As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,

As men for ever temperate, calm, and wife.

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