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 beast and bird their common charge attend,
The mothers nurse it, and the fires defend ;
The young difmifs'd to wander earth or air,
There ftops the instinct, and there ends the care,
The link diffolves, each seeks' a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds, another race.
A longer care man's helpless kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lafting bands;
Reflection, reafon, fill the ties improve,
At once extend the int'reft, and the love;
With choice we fix, with fympathy we burn ;
Each virtue in each paffion takes its turn;
And fill new needs, new helps, new habits rife,
That graft benevolence or charities.

Still as one brood; and as another rofe,
Thefe nat'ral love maintain'd, habitual those :
The laft fcarce ripen'd into perfect man,
Saw helpless him from their life began:
Mem'ry and forescaft juft returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;

While

While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd,
Still spread the int'reft, and preferv'd the kind.

IV. Nor think, in NATURE'S STATE they blindly trod;
The flate of nature was the reign of God:
Self-love and focial 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 undrest,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, flood the blameless priest:
Heav'n's attribute was Univerfal Care,

And man's prerogative to rule, but fpáre.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;
Who, foe to nature, hears the gen'ral groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
But juft difeafe to luxury fucceeds,
And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds;
The fury-paffions from that blood began,
And turn'd on man a fiercer favage, man.
See him from nature rifing flow to art!
instinct then was reafon's part;

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6

Thus then to man the voice of nature spake→

Go, from the creatures thy inftructions take:

• Learn

Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; • Learn from the beafts the phyfic of the field; Thy arts of building from the bee.receive;

• Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave ;
Learn of the little Nautilus to fail,

Spread the thin oar, or catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of focial union find,
And hence let reason, late, inftru&t mankind:
Here fubterranean works and cities fee;
There towns aërial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The Ant's republic, and the realm of Bees :
How thofe in common all their wealth beflow,
• And Anarchy without confufion know ;

And these for ever, tho' a Monarch reign,
Their fep'rate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvary'd laws preferve each flate,
Laws wife as nature, and as fix'd as fate.
In vain thy reafon finer webs fhall draw,
Entangle juftice in her net of law,

And right, too rigid, harden into wrong;
Still for the frong too weak, the weak too flrongs
Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures fway,
• Thus let the wifer make the reft obey;

And for thofe arts mere inflint could afford,
Be crown'd as monarchs, or as Gods ador'd.'
V. Great nature fpoke; obfervant man obey'd;
Cities were built, focieties were made:

Here

Here rofe one little ftate; another near
Grew by like means, and join'd, thro' love or fear.
Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend,

And there the ftreams in purer rills defcend?
What war could ravifh, commerce could bestow,
And he return'd a friend, who came a foe.
Converfe, and love mankind might ftrongly draw,
When love was liberty and nature law*,

Thus flates were form'd; the name of king unknown,
Till common int'reft plac'd the fway in one.
Twas VIRTUE ONLY (or in arts or arms,
Diffufing bleffings, or averting harms),
The fame which in a fire, the fons obey'd,
A prince the father of a people made.

VI. Till then, by Nature crown'd, each Patriarch fate
King, prief, and parent of his growing flate;
On him, their fecond Providence, they hung,
Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue.
He from the wond'ring furrow call'd the food,
Taught to command the fire, controul the flood,
Draw forth the monsters of the aby fs profound,
Or fetch the aerial eagle to the ground.

Till

* That is, when men had no need to guard their native liberty from their governor by civil pactions; the Love which each mafter of a family had for thofe under his care being their beft fecurity.

Till drooping, fick'ning, dying they began
Whom they rever'd as God to mourn as man :
Then, looking up from fire to fire, explor'd
One great Firft Father, and that first ador'd.
Or plain tradition, that this All begun,
Convey'd unbroken faith from fire to fon;
The Worker from the work diftinct was known,
And fimple reafon never fought but one :
Ere wit oblique had broke that fleady light,'
Man, like his Maker, faw that all was wright;
To virtue, in the paths of pleafure trod,

And own'd a Father when he own'd God.
LOVE all the faith, and all th' allegiance then ;
For nature knew no right divine in men.
A No ill could fear in God; and underflood
A fov'reign being but a fov'reign good.
(True faith. true policy, united ran)

That was but love of God, and this of man.

Who firft taught fouls enflav'd, and realms undone,
Th' enormous faith of many made for one;
That proud exception to all nature's laws,

T'invert the world, and counterwork its cause ?
Force firft made conqueft, and that conqueft law;
Till fuperftition taught the tyrant awe,

Then

A beautiful allufion to the effects of a prifmatic,

glafs on the rays of light.