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 insect'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 interest prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride :
All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy
Th' extensive blassing of his luxury.
That very life his learned hunger craves,
He saves from famine, from the savage saves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feast,

50

55

60

65

And, till he ends the being, makes it bleft:
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 such a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too :
The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear,
Death ftill draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heaven assign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

70

75

II. Whether

II. Whether with Reafon, or with Instinct bleft, Know, all enjoy that power which fuits them beft; 80 To bliss 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?
Reafon, however able, cool at best,

Cares not for fervice, or but ferves when preft,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;

But honeft Instinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit;
While ftill too wide or short is human Wit;
Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reason 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 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 fhun their poifon, and to chuse their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempefts to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand ?

VARIATION.

After ver. 84, in the MS.

While Man, with opening views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge ftrays;
Too weak to chuse, yet chusing still in haste,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.

85

90

95

100

Who

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, 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,

105

110

On mutual Wants built mutual Happiness :

So from the first, 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 shoots beneath the deeps,

115

Or pours profufe on earth, one nature feeds

The vital flame, and swells 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,

120

Each sex 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, 125

The mothers nurse it, and the fires defend;

The young dismiss'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:

130

Reflection,

Reflection, Reason, still the ties improve,
At once extend the interest, and the love:
With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn;
Each Virtue in each Paffion takes its turn;
And ftill new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rose,
These natural love maintain'd, habitual those:
The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Memory and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd,
Still spread the interest, and preferve the kind.

135

140

145

IV. Nor think, in NATURE'S STAT E 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.

150

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 fame his bed;

No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed.

In the same temple, the resounding wood,

155

All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undress'd,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest:

Heaven's Attribute was Universal Care,

And man's prerogative, to rule, but fpare.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!

Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;

Who,

165

Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
But just disease to luxury fucceeds,
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 flow to Art!
To copy inftinct 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;

" Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;

170

175

" Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; "Learn of the little Nautilus to fail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. "Here too all forms of social union find,

"And hence let Reason, late, instruct Mankind: 180 " Here fubterranean works and cities see; "There towns aërial on the waving tree. " Learn each small People's genius, policies, "The Ant's republic, and the realm of Bees; "How those in common all their wealth bestow, 185 " And Anarchy without confufion know; " And these for ever, though a Monarch reign, "Their separate cells and properties maintain. " Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state, "Laws wife as Nature, and as fix'd as Fate.

" In vain thy Reason finer webs shall draw,

190

" And