Sure never to o ershoot, but just to hit,
While still too wide or short is human wit;
Sure by quick nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier reason labors at in vain.
This too serves always, reason never long:
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing powers
One in their nature, which are two in ours!
And reason raise o'er instinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man.
Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To shun their poison and to choose their food?
Prescient the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels design,
Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the stork, Columbus like, explore
Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, states the certain day?
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way ?
God, in the nature of each being, founds Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds: But as he fram'd a whole, the whole to bless, On mutual wants built mutual happiness; So from the first, eternal order ran,
And creature link'd to creature, man to man.
97. And raise reason o'er instinct as you can raise it. Raise is, by hypothesis, in the imp. mode.
101. Who gave them foresight to withstand? prescient is an adj. agreeing with them understood.
Whate'er of life all-quick'ning ether keeps,
Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the
Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds
The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds.
Not man alone, but all that roam the wood,
Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood,!
Each loves itself, but not itself alone,
Each sex desires alike, till two are one.
Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace;
They love themselves, a third time, in their race.
Thus beast and bird their common charge attend,
The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend :
The young dismiss'd to wander earth or air,
There stops the instinct, and there ends the care,
The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace,
Another love succeeds, another race.
A longer care, man's helpless kind demands:
That longer care contracts more lasting bands:
Reflection, reason, still the ties improve,
At once extend the int'rest and the love.
115-118. One nature feeds the vital flame, and swells the genial seeds of everything of life, which all quickening either keeps or breathes, or shoots, or pours, &c., the verbs being connected, in each case, by or. This construction may, however, be doubted, and we are inclined to adopt the following: Let or be taken for either as or whether, it will read thus-One nature feeds, &c., of whatever, &c. all quick'ning either keeps (or sustains) either as (or whether) it breathes, or shoots, or pours (i. e. puts forth) profusely, & 130. Another love succeeds, another race succeeds.
With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn;
Each virtue in each passion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rose,
These natʼral love maintained, habitual those:
The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect man,
Saw helpless him, from whom their life began;
Mem'ry and forecast just returns engage;
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude and hope combin ́d,
Still spread the int'rest, and preserv d the kind.
IV. Nor think in nature's state they blindly
The state of nature was the reign of Goa
Self-love and social at her birth began,
Union the bond of all things, and of man.
Pride then was not; nor arts that pride to aid:
Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade;
The same his table, and the same his bed;
No murder cloth'd him, and no murder fed.
In the same temple, the resounding wood,
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
142. Saw him helpless from whom the life began.
144.
That-memory. This (forecast) points, &c.
151. Nor were arts, to aid that pride.
152. Joint tenant is in apposition with man. 155. Wood is in apposition with temple.
The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest;
Heaven's attribute was universal care,
And man's prerogative, to rule, but spare.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live, the butcher, and the tomb;
Who, foe to nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
But just disease to luxury succeeds,
And every death its own avenger breeds;
The fury passions from that blood began,
And turn'd on man, a fiercer savage, man.
See him from nature rising slow to art!
To copy instinct then was reason's part;
Thus then to man the voice of nature spake-
"Go, from the creatures thy instructions take:
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
157. The shrine was, &c. Unstained and undrest are participal adj's., having lost their original nature of pure parts. by being joined with the privative un. The privative always works this chance, when it makes the part with which it is joined, imply, that the state or act, which the part taken by itself, would express, never existed, or was never done. Thus, un-drest here means, that it never had been drest, &c. Undrest, when derived from the verb to andress, to divest of clothes, is a part.
160. To rule supplies a nom. after was understood, and spart is connected with it.
161. Ah! how unlike was he to the man of times to come. Butcher and tomb connected are in apposition with man Man kills and devours for food, half that live. 167. The fury-passions-fury is a sub. used as an adj. 163. Man, in the end of the line, is in apposition with savage.
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; Learn of the little nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aerial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ants' republic, and the realm of bees;
How those in common all their wealth bestow,
And anarchy without confusion know;
And these for ever, though a monarch reign,
Their separate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw,
Entangle justice in her net of law,
And right, too rigid, harden into wrong;
Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.
Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway,
Thus let the wiser make the rest obey:
And for those arts mere instinct could afford,
Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods ador'd."
V. Great nature spoke; observant man obey'd;
192. In vain entangle justice, &c.
193. And herden right, made too rigid, into wrong. 198 Monarchs-See note to ver. 87, Epis. I.
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