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EPISTLE I.

WAKE, MY ST. JOHN ! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.

Let us (fince Life can little more fupply

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Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of Man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promifcuous fhoot;
Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Eye Nature's walks, fhoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the Manners living as they rife;

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The Exordium of this poem relates to the whole work, of which the Effay on Man was only the first book. The 6th, 7th, and 8th lines allude to the subjects of this Essay, viz. the general Order and Defign of Providence; the Constitution of the human Mind; the origin, ufe, and end of the Paffions and Affections, both felfish and focial; and the wrong pursuits of Power, Pleasure, and Happiness. The 10th, 11th, 12th, &c. have relation to the fubjects of the books intended to follow, viz. the Characters and Capacities of Men, and the Limits of Science, which once tranfgreffed, ignorance begins, and error follows. The 13th and 14th, to the Knowledge of Mankind, and the various Manners of the age.

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Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can; 15 But vindicate the ways of God to Man.

I. Say firft, of God above, or Man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of Man, what fee we but his station here,

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From which to reafon, or to which refer?
Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known,
"Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who thro' vaft immenfity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compofe one universe,
Obferve how system into system runs,

What other planets circle other funs,
What vary'd Being peoples ev'ry star,

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May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?
II. Prefumptuous Man! the reafon wouldst thou

find,

Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and fo blind?
Firft, if thou canft, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs?

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VER. 21. Thro' worlds unnumber'd, etc.] Hunc cognofcimus folummodo per Proprietates fuas et Attributa, et per fapientif fimas et optimas rerum ftructuras et caufas finales. Newtoni Princ. Schol. gen. fub fin.

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Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or ftronger than the weeds they fhade ?
Or afk of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's Satellites are lefs than Jove ?
Of Syftems poffible, if 'tis confeft
That Wisdom infinite muft form the best,
Where all muft full or not coherent be,
And all that rifes, rife in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong ?
Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one fingle can its end produce;
Yet ferves to fecond too fome other use.
So Man, who here feems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to fome sphere unknown,
Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal;
'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.

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55

60

When the proud fteed fhall know whyMan reftrains His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains; When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Ægypt's God:

VARIATIONS.

In the former Editions 64.

Now wears a garland an Ægyptian God.

Then fhall Man's pride and dulnefs comprehend 65
His actions', paffions', being's, ufe and end;
Why doing, fuff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a flave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge meafur'd to his ftate and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here or there?
The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

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75

f

As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

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All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could fuffer Being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play ?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow`ry food,
And licks the hand juft rais'd to fhed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:

VARIATIONS.

After 68. the following lines in first Ed.

If to be perfect in a certain fphere,

What matters foon or late, or here or there?
The bleft to-day is as completely fo

As who began ten thousand years ago.

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Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a fparrow fall,

Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

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Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now. Hope fprings eternal in the human breast: Man never Is, but always To be bleft: The foul, uneafy and confin'd from home, Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the

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poor Indian whofe untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100 His foul, proud Science never taught to stray Far as the folar walk, or milky way;

Yet fimple Nature to his hope has giv'n,

Behind the cloud-topt-hill, an humbler heav'n; Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd, 105 Some happier island in the watry waste,

VARIATIONS.

After 88. in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's Gnat fhould die as Cæfar bleed.

In the first Folio and Quarto,

What blifs above he gives not thee to know,

But gives that Hope to be thy blifs below.

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