Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world,

90

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.

95

Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100
His foul, proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;

Yet fimple Nature to his hope has giv❜n,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;

What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blifs below.

NOTES.

VER. 97. from home,] | of probation for another, By these words, it was the poet's purpose to teach, that the prefent life is only a state

more fuitable to the effence of the foul, and to the free exercise of it's qualities.

105

Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watʼry waste,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

115

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 ingrofs not Heav'n'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.

VARIATIONS.

After 108. in the first Ed.

But does he fay the maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what ftate he wou'd:
Himself alone high Heav'n's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where?

120

1

In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride ftill 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.

125

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 ;

NOTES.

gentes.

VER. 123. In Pride,&c.] | tione contiguas. Arnobius has paffed the fame censure on these very follies, which he fuppofes to arife from the cause here affigned.-Nihil eft quod nos fallat, nihil quod nobis polliceatur fpes caffas (id quod nobis a quibufdam dicitur viris immoderata fui opinione fublatis) animas immortales effe, Deo, rerum ac principi, gradu proximas dignitatis, genitore illo ac patre prolatas, divinas, fapientes, doctas, neque ulla corporis attrecta

Adverfus

VER. 131. Afk for what end, &c.] If there be any fault in these lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but a want of exactnefs in expreffing it.-It is the higheft abfurdity to think that Earth is man's foot-ftool, his canopy the Skies, and the heavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not fo, to fuppofe fruits and minerals given for this end.

1

"Annual for me, the grape, the rofe, renew, 135 "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;

66

My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."

140

But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs 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;

145

"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 lefs? 150

66

66

NOTES.

VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, &c.] "While comets move in very ec“ centric orbs, in all manner of pofitions, blind "Fate could never make all "the planets move one and "the fame way in orbs con"centric; fome inconfider

"able irregularities except

"ed, which may have risen "from the mutual actions "of comets and planets up

on one another, and which "will be apt to increase, "'till this fyftem wants a "reformation." Sir Ifaac " Newton's Optics, Queft. ult.

As much that end a conftant course requires

Of fhow'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires

As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wife.

154

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's defign, Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

159

Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms;
Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning fprings;
Account for moral, as for natʼral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reafon right is to submit.

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 ftrife';

And Paffions are the elements of Life.

The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began,

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

NOTES.

165

170

VER. 169. But ALL fub- | extended in Ep. ii. from fifts, &c.] See this subject | go to 112, 155, &c. P.