The bounding steed you pompously bestride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain?
The birds of Heav'n 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 use! » >> See man for mine! » replies a pamper'd goose : And just as short of reason he must fall,

Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

Grant that the pow'rful 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?

Est-ce

pour ton plaisir que de sa tendre voix
Le jeune rossignol fait retentir les bois?
En sons harmonieux exhalant son ivresse,
Il chante ses plaisirs, il chante sa tendresse.
Ce coursier bondissant, fier de vaincre sous toi,
Partage le plaisir de répandre l'effroi.

Le boeuf traîne le soc; mais cet esclave utile
Tire un juste tribut du champ qu'il rend fertile.
Le sauvage animal dans les bois élevé

Vient se nourrir du grain qu'il n'a point cultivé;
Et l'oiseau qui sans soin vit du fruit de ta peine,
Ose du roi du monde infester le domaine.

Le ciel à ses enfants partage ses secours;

La fourure des rois a revêtu des ours.

« Pour moi, dit l'Homme altier, pour moi seul tout s'empresse. « L'Homme vit pour moi seul, dit l'oison qu'on engraisse. » L'un et l'autre s'abuse; et le maître des cieux

Les fit pour l'univers, non l'univers pour eux.

Mais des faibles enfin que les plus forts soient maîtres;
Sois et le bel-esprit et le tyran des êtres;

Les cieux de ce tyran leur assurent les soins;

Lui seul connaît leur prix et prévoit leurs besoins.
Ce plumage émaillé que le pigeon déploie,
A l'avide épervier fait-il lâcher sa proie?
Le chant du rossignol touche-t-il le faucon?
Le geai respecte-t-il l'éclat du papillon?

Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods.
For some his Int'rest prompts him to provide,
For more his Pleasure, yet for more his Pride :
All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy

Th' extensive blessing of his luxury.

That life his learned hunger craves, very

He saves from famine, from the savage saves;

Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast
And, 'till he ends the being, makes it blest;
Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
'Than favour'd Man by touch etherial slain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!
To each unthinking being, Heav'n, a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end :
To Man imparts it; but with such a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too;
The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.

THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

L