All ferv'd, all ferving nothing ftands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food!
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly spread the flowery lawn:
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures well the note.
The bounding fteed you pompously beftride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain?
The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer:
The hog, that plows not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all,
Know, Nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. While Man exclaims, "See all things for my ufe!" 45 See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goofe:1
And just as fhort of reafon He must fall,
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
After ver. 46. in the former Editions,
What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!
All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him.
As far as Goofe could judge, he reason'd right;
But as to Man, miftook the matter quite.
Grant that the powerful still the weak controul;
Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole :
Nature that Tyrant checks; he only knows,
And helps, another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove?
Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods;
For fome his intereft prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:
All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy
Th' extensive bleffing of his luxury,
That very life his learned hunger craves,
He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feaft,
And, till he ends the being, makes it blest :
Which fees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch ethereal flain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!
To each unthinking being, Heaven a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To Man imparts it; but with fuch a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:
The hour conceal'd, and fo remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heaven affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.
II. Whether with Reason, or with Instinct bleft,
Know, all enjoy that power which fuits them beft; 80 To blifs alike by that direction tend,
And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full Instinct is th' unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need befide?
Reason, however able, cool at best,
Cares not for fervice, or but ferves when preft,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honest Instinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit;
While still too wide or fhort is human Wit;
Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reafon labours at in vain.
This too ferves 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 Reafon 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 fhun their poison, and to chuse their food?
Prefcient, the tides or tempefts to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand?
After ver. 84. in the MS.
While Man, with opening views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge ftrays:
Too weak to chufe, yet chufing still in haste,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.
Who made the spider parallels defign,
Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the ftork, Columbus-like, explore
Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before;
Who calls the council, ftates the certain day,
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper blifs, and fets its proper bounds:
But as he fram'd a Whole, the Whole to bless,
On mutual Wants, built mutual Happiness:
So from the firft, eternal ORDER ran,
And creature link'd to creature, man to man.
Whate'er of life all-quickening æther keeps,
Or breathes through air, or fhoots beneath the deeps,
Or pours profufe on earth, one nature feeds
The vital flame, and fwells the genial feeds.
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 fex defires alike, till two are one.
Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace;
They love themselves, a third time, in their race.
Thus beaft and bird their common charge attend,
The mothers nurse it, and the fires defend;
The young difmifs'd to wander earth or air,
There stops the Instinct, and there ends the care;
The link diffolves, each feeks a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds, another race.
A longer care Man's helpless kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lafting bands:
Reflection, Reason, ftill the ties improve,
At once extend the intereft, and the love:
With choice we fix, with fympathy we burn;
Each Virtue in each Paffion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rofe,
Th fe natural love maintain'd, habitual those :
The laft, fcarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
Saw helplefs him from whom their life began:
Memory and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleafure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd,
Still fpread the interest, and preserve the kind.
IV. Ner think, in NATURE'S STATE they blindly trod;
The State of Nature was the reign of God:
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 beaft, joint tenant of the fhade;
The fame his table, and the fame his bed;
No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed.
In the fame temple, the refounding wood,
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The fhrine with gore unftain'd, with gold undrefs'd,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, ftood 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;
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