| |
| HERE then we rest; ‘The universal cause | |
| Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.’ | |
| In all the madness of superfluous health, | |
| The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth, | |
| Let this great truth be present night and day; | 5 |
| But most be present, if we preach or pray. | |
| Look round our world; behold the chain of love | |
| Combining all below and all above. | |
| See plastic nature working to this end, | |
| The single atoms each to other tend, | 10 |
| Attract, attracted to, the next in place | |
| Form’d and impell’d its neighbour to embrace. | |
| See matter next, with various life endu’d, | |
| Press to one centre still, the gen’ral good. | |
| See dying vegetables life sustain, | 15 |
| See life dissolving vegetate again: | |
| All forms that perish other forms supply, | |
| (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die), | |
| Like bubbles on the sea of matter born, | |
| They rise, they break, and to that sea return. | 20 |
| Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole; | |
| One all-extending, all-preserving soul | |
| Connects each being, greatest with the least; | |
| Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; | |
| All serv’d, all serving: nothing stands alone; | 25 |
| The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. | |
| Has God, thou fool! work’d solely for thy good, | |
| Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? | |
| Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, | |
| For him as kindly spread the flow’ry lawn: | 30 |
| Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? | |
| Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. | |
| Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? | |
| Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. | |
| The bounding steed you pompously bestride, | 35 |
| 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: | 40 |
| 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!’ | 45 |
| ‘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 control; | |
| Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole: | 50 |
| 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? | 55 |
| 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, | |
| All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy | 60 |
| Th’ extensive blessing of his luxury, | |
| That very life his learned hunger craves, | |
| 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: | 65 |
| Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain, | |
| Than favour’d man by touch ether’al 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, | 70 |
| 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. | 75 |
| Great standing miracle! that heav’n assign’d | |
| Its only thinking thing this turn of mind. | |
| II. Whether with reason, or with instinct blest, | |
| Know, all enjoy that pow’r which suits them best; | |
| To bliss alike by that direction tend, | 80 |
| And find the means proportion’d to their end. | |
| Say, where full instinct is th’ unerring guide, | |
| What Pope or council can they need beside? | |
| Reason, however able, cool at best, | |
| Cares not for service, or but serves when prest, | 85 |
| Stays ’till we call, and then not often near; | |
| But honest instinct comes a volunteer, | |
| Sure never to o’er-shoot, but just to hit; | |
| While still too wide or short is human wit; | |
| Sure by quick nature happiness to gain, | 90 |
| Which heavier reason labours 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 pow’rs | |
| One in their nature, which are two in ours; | 95 |
| 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 flood | |
| To shun their poison, and to chuse their food? | |
| Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, | 100 |
| 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 | |
| Heav’ns not his own, and worlds unknown before? | 105 |
| Who calls the council, states the certain day, | |
| Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way? | |
| III. 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, | 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-quick’ning ether keeps, | |
| Or breathes thro’ air, or shoots beneath the deeps, | 115 |
| 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, | 120 |
| 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; | 125 |
| 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; | 130 |
| That longer care contracts more lasting bands: | |
| Reflection, reason, still the ties improve, | |
| At once extend the int’rest, and the love: | |
| With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn; | |
| Each virtue in each passion takes its turn; | 135 |
| And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise, | |
| That graft benevolence on charities. | |
| Still as one brood, and as another rose, | |
| These nat’ral love maintain’d, habitual those: | |
| The last, scarce ripen’d into perfect man, | 140 |
| Saw helpless him from whom their life began: | |
| Mem’ry and fore-cast 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. | 145 |
| IV. Nor 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; | 150 |
| 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: | 155 |
| The shrine with gore unstain’d, with gold undrest, | |
| Unbrib’d, unbloody, stood the blameless priest: | |
| Heav’n’s attribute was universal care, | |
| And man’s prerogative, to rule, but spare. | |
| Ah! how unlike the man of times to come! | 160 |
| 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 just disease to luxury succeeds, | |
| And ev’ry death its own avenger breeds; | 165 |
| 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, | 170 |
| ‘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; | |
| Thy arts of building from the bee receive; | |
| Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave; | 175 |
| 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; | 180 |
| 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, | |
| And anarchy without confusion know; | 185 |
| And these forever, tho’ a monarch reign, | |
| Their separate cells and properties maintain. | |
| Mark what unvary’d laws preserve each state, | |
| Laws wise as nature, and as fix’d as fate. | |
| In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw, | 190 |
| 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; | 195 |
| 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; | |
| Cities were built, societies were made: | |
| Here rose one little state; another near | 200 |
| Grew by like means, and join’d, thro’ love or fear. | |
| Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend, | |
| And there the streams in purer rills descend? | |
| What war could ravish, commerce could bestow, | |
| And he return’d a friend, who came a foe. | 205 |
| Converse and love mankind might strongly draw, | |
| When love was liberty, and nature law. | |
| Thus states were form’d; the name of king unknown, | |
| ’Till common int’rest plac’d the sway in one. | |
| ’Twas virtue only (or in arts or arms, | 210 |
| Diffusing blessings, or averting harms) | |
| The same which in a sire the sons obey’d, | |
| A prince the father of a people made. | |
| VI. ’Till then, by nature crown’d, each patriarch sate, | |
| King, priest and parent of his growing state; | 215 |
| On him, their second providence, they hung, | |
| Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. | |
| He from the wand’ring furrow call’d the food, | |
| Taught to command the fire, control the flood, | |
| Draw forth the monsters of th’ abyss profound, | 220 |
| Or fetch th’ aërial eagle to the ground, | |
| ’Till drooping, sick’ning, dying, they began | |
| Whom they rever’d as God to mourn as man: | |
| Then, looking up from sire to sire, explor’d | |
| One great first father, and that first ador’d. | 225 |
| Or plain tradition that this All begun, | |
| Convey’d unbroken faith from sire to son; | |
| The worker from the work distinct was known, | |
| And simple reason never sought but one: | |
| Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light, | 230 |
| Man, like his maker, saw that all was right; | |
| To virtue, in the paths of pleasure trod, | |
| And own’d a father when he own’d a God. | |
| Love all the faith, and all th’ allegiance then; | |
| For nature knew no right divine in men, | 235 |
| No ill could fear in God; and understood | |
| A sov’reign being, but a sov’reign good. | |
| True faith, true policy, united ran, | |
| That was but love of God, and this of man. | |
| Who first taught souls enslav’d, and realms undone, | 240 |
| Th’ enormous faith of many made for one; | |
| That proud exception to all nature’s laws, | |
| T’invert the world, and counter-work its cause? | |
| Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law; | |
| ’Till superstition taught the tyrant awe, | 245 |
| Then shar’d the tyranny, then lent it aid, | |
| And gods of conqu’rors, slaves of subjects made: | |
| She, ’midst the lightning’s blaze, and thunder’s sound, | |
| When rock’d the mountains, and when groan’d the ground, | |
| She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, | 250 |
| To pow’r unseen, and mightier far than they: | |
| She, from the rending earth, and bursting skies, | |
| Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise: | |
| Here fix’d the dreadful, there the blest abodes; | |
| Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods; | 255 |
| Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, | |
| Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust; | |
| Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, | |
| And, form’d like tyrants, tyrants would believe. | |
| Zeal then, not charity, became the guide; | 260 |
| And hell was built on spite, and heav’n on pride. | |
| Then sacred seem’d th’ ether’al vault no more; | |
| Altars grew marble then, and reek’d with gore: | |
| Then first the flamen tasted living food; | |
| Next his grim idol smear’d with human blood; | 265 |
| With heav’n’s own thunders shook the world below, | |
| And play’d the god an engine on his foe. | |
| So drives self-love, thro’ just, and thro’ unjust, | |
| To one man’s pow’r, ambition, lucre, lust. | |
| The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause | 270 |
| Of what restrains him, government and laws. | |
| For, what one likes, if others like as well, | |
| What serves one will, when many wills rebel? | |
| How shall he keep, what, sleeping or awake, | |
| A weaker may surprise, a stronger take? | 275 |
| His safety must his liberty restrain: | |
| All join to guard what each desires to gain. | |
| Forc’d into virtue thus, by self-defence, | |
| Ev’n kings learn’d justice and benevolence: | |
| Self-love forsook the path it first pursu’d, | 280 |
| And found the private in the public good. | |
| ’Twas then the studious head or gen’rous mind, | |
| Follow’r of God, or friend of human-kind, | |
| Poet or patriot, rose but to restore | |
| The faith and moral nature gave before; | 285 |
| Relum’d her ancient light, not kindled new, | |
| If not God’s image, yet his shadow drew: | |
| Taught pow’r’s due use to people and to kings, | |
| Taught nor to slack, nor strain its tender strings, | |
| The less, or greater, set so justly true, | 290 |
| That touching one must strike the other too; | |
| ’Till jarring int’rests, of themselves create | |
| Th’ according music of a well-mix’d state. | |
| Such is the world’s great harmony, that springs | |
| From order, union, full consent of things: | 295 |
| Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made | |
| To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade; | |
| More pow’rful each as needful to the rest, | |
| And in proportion as it blesses, blest; | |
| Draw to one point, and to one centre bring | 300 |
| Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king. | |
| For forms of government let fools contest; | |
| Whate’er is best administer’d is best: | |
| For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight; | |
| His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right: | 305 |
| In faith and hope the world will disagree, | |
| But all mankind’s concern is Charity: | |
| All must be false that thwart this one great end; | |
| And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend. | |
| Man, like the gen’rous vine, supported lives; | 310 |
| The strength he gains is from th’ embrace he gives. | |
| On their own axis as the planets run, | |
| Yet make at once their circle round the sun; | |
| So two consistent motions act the soul; | |
| And one regards itself, and one the whole. | 315 |
| Thus God and nature link’d the gen’ral frame, | |
| And bade self-love and social be the same. | |
| |
