The young dismifs'd to wander earth or air,
There ftops 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 lasting bands:
Reflection, reason, ftill 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 still new needs, new helps, new habits, rife,
That graft benevolence on charities.

Still as one brood and as another role,
These natʼral love maintain'd, habitual, those;
The laft, fcarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
- Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Mem'ry and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age."
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd,
Still fpread the int'reft, and preferv'd the kind.

Nor think in Nature's ftate they blindly trod;
The state 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 cloth'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 undreft;
Unbrib'd, unbloody, ftood the blameless priest:
Heav'n's attribute was univerfal 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, foe to Nature, hears the gen'ral groan,
Murders their fpecies, and betrays his own.
But just disease to luxury fucceeds, -
And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds;

Pope.

Pope.

The fury-paffions from that blood began,
And turn'd on Man a fiercer favage Man.

See him from nature rifing flow to art!
To copy instinct then was Reason's part:
Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake
Go, from the creatures thy inftructions take:
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 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 focial union find,
And hence let Reafon, late, inftruct Mankind:
Here fubterranean works and cities fee;
There towns aërial on the waving tree:
Learn each fmall people's genius, policies,
The ants' republic, and the realm of bees;
How thofe in common all their wealth bestow
And anarchy without confufion know;
And thefe for ever, tho' a monarch reign,
,,Their fep'r'ate 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 reafon finer webs fhall draw,
,,Entangle Juftice in her net of law,

,,And Right, too rigid, harden into wrong,
Still for the ftrong too weak, the weak too ftrong
Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures (way,
Thus let the wifer make the rest obey;

وو

,,And for thofe arts mere inftinct could afford,
,,Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods ador'd."
Great Nature fpoke; obfervant Man obey'd;
Cities were built, focieties were made:
Here rofe one little ftate; another near

Grew by like means, and join'd thro' love or fear,
Did here the trees with ruddier burthens bend,
And there the ftreams in purer rills defcend?
What war could ravish, commerce could bestow,
And he return'd a friend, who came a foe,

Pope.

Converfe and love mankind might strongly draw,
When love was liberty, and Nature law.

Thus ftates 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
Diffusing bleffing, or averting harms,)
The fame which in a fire the fons obey'd,
A prince the father of a people made.

Till then, by Nature crown'd, each patriarch fate
King, prieft, and parent, of his growing state;
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, controll the flood,
Draw forth the monsters of th' abyfs profound.
Or fetch the aerial eagle to the ground;
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 first 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 know,
And fimple reafon never fought but one.
Ere wit oblique had broke that fteady light,
Man, like his Maker, faw 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;
No ill could fear in God, and understood
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.

Wo first 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 caufe.
Force first made conqueft, and that conqueft law,
Till fuperftition taught the tyrant awe

pope.

Then fhar'd the tyranny, then lent in aid,
And gods of conqu'rors, flaves of fubjects, made:
She 'midft the lightning's blaze and thunder s found,
When rock'd the mountains and when groan'd the
ground,

She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray
To pow'r unfeen, and mightier far than they;
She from the rending earth and bursting kies
Saw gods defcend, and fiends infernal rife:
Here fix'd the dreadful, there the blefs'd abodes;
Fear made her devils, and weak Hope her gods;
Gods partial, changeful, paffionate, unjust,
Whofe attributes were rage, revenge, or luft;
Such as the fouls of cowards might conceive,
And form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not Charity, became the guide,
And, hell was built on fpite, and heav'n on pride;
Then facred feem'd th' ethereal vault no more;
Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore:
Then first the Flamen tafted living food,
Next his grim idol fmear'd with human blood.
With heav'n's own thunders fhook the world below
And play'd the god an engine on his foe.

MO

MORAL

Pope.

ESSAYS.

Epift. I. v. 99-173.

In vain the fage, with retrospective eye
Would from th' apparent What conclude the Why,
Infer the motive from the deed, and fhow,

That, what we chanc'd, was what we meant to do.
Behold! if Fortune or a Mistress frowns,

Some plunge in bus'nefs, others fhave their crowns;
To eafe the foul of one oppreffive weight,
This quits an empire, that embroils a state.
The fame aduft complexion has impell'd
Charles to the convent, Philip to the field.

Not always actions fhew the Man. We find,
Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind:
Perhaps profperity becalm'd his breaft;
Perhaps the wind juft fhifted from the eaft:
Not therefore humble he, who feeks retreat;
Pride guides his fteps, and bids him fhun the great,
Who combats bravely, is not therefore brave;
He dreads a deathbed like the meanest flave.
Who reafons wifely, is not therefore wife;
His pride in reas'ning, not in acting, lies.

But grant that actions best discover man;
Take the moft ftrong, and fort them as you can,
The few that glare each character muft mark,
You balance not the many in the dark,
What will you do with fuch as disagree?
Supprefs them, or mifcall them policy?
Muft then at once (the character to fave)
The plain rough hero tarn a crafty knave?
Alas! in truth the man but chang'd his mind,
Perhaps was fick in love, or had not din'd.
Afk why from Britain Caefar would retreat?