Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90 95 Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Yet simple nature to his hope has giv❜n, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; Ver. 93. 94. In the first fol. and quarto, But does he say the maker is not good, 100 105 IIO But But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. IV. Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense, 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 gust, Yet cry, If man's unhappy, God's unjust; If man alone ingross not Heav'n's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there : Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Re-judge his justice, be the God of GOD. In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies; 115 120 All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, 125 Men would be angels, angels would be Gods. Aspiring to be Gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel : And who but wishes to invert the laws Of ORDER, sins against th' Eternal Cause. 130 V. 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, "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; 135 Seas "Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise ; 66 140 My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies." But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd), the first Almighty Cause "Acts not by partial, but by gen❜ral laws; "Th' exceptions few; some change since all began: "And what created perfect ?-Why then man?" If the great end be human happiness, 145 150 Then nature deviates; and can man do less? 156 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? Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, D 2 165 That That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never passion discompos'd the mind. The gen❜ral ORDER, since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man. 170 VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar, And little less than angels, would be more; 180 Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears 175 185 Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all ? The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190 No Ver. 174. And little less than angels, &c.] Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crown'd him with glory and bonour. Psalm viii. 9. No pow'rs of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Say what the use, were finer optics giv❜n, 195 T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the Heav'n? And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, VII. Far as creation's ample range extends, And hound sagacious to the tainted green 205 210 Of VER. 213. the beadlong lioness] The manner of the lions hunting their prey in the desarts of Africa is this: at their first going out in the night-time, they set up a loud roar, and then listen to the noise made by the beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the nostril. It is probable the story of the jackall's hunting for the lion, was occasioned by the observation of this defect of scent in that terrible animal, |