"No ('tis replied) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial,* but by general laws;
The exceptions few; some change since all began:
And what created perfect ?"-Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then nature deviates ;* and can man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of showers and sunshine as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies
As men forever temperate,* calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design,
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline?
Who knows but He whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms,
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs ;
Account for moral as for natural things:
Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit ?
In both, to reason right is to submit.
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue * here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discomposed the mind.
followed by a destructive tidal wave ("tempest "), the city of San Iago was swallowed up by the earthquake; the inundation overflowed the city of Conception and reached Callao. 147. some change, etc. The meaning is, some change, indeed, there has been since the beginning of all things.
156. Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline! Cæsar Borgia, a son of Pope Alexander VI., was a monster of wickedness. Among other crimes, he poisoned his father
and assassinated his brother. He died in 1507. Catiline, the Roman conspirator against whom Cicero thundered, and whose history Sallust wrote. He died 62 B.C. 159-160. Cæsar's... young Ammon. Cæsar: that is, Julius Cæsar. By "young Ammon” is meant
Alexander the Great. Ammon was an Egyptian deity, to whose shrine, in the Libyan Desert, Alexander paid a visit, and was saluted by the priests as the son of their god.
But all subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The general order, since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.
What would this man? Now upward will he soar,
And little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the powers of all?
Nature to these, without profusion,* kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assigned;
Each seeming want compensated* of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect,* happy in its own:
Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleased with nothing if not blest with all?
The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No powers of body or of soul to share
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic* eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics* given,
To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?
169. elemental strife = a strife of the el- | 196. To inspect a mite... heaven: that
173. What would this man = what, then,
does man desire?
176. To want, at lacking.
183. state, condition of the animal.
184. Nothing to add, etc.: that is, she left nothing to add, etc.
is, what were the use had man optics so fine that he could inspect a mite, if at the same time he were unable to comprehend the heavens?
197-200. Or touch... pain? This passage is very elliptical: the mean
Or, quick effluvia* darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain ?
If nature thundered in his opening ears,
And stunned him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives and what denies ?
Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual,* mental powers ascends :
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass;
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood
To that which warbles through the vernal wood?
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line;
ing is, supposing touch were 212. The mole's dim curtain. . . beam.
tremblingly alive all over, what
would it advantage us if we
smarted and agonized at every
pore? or when quick effluvia
darted through the brain, what
should we gain by dying of a
rose in aromatic pain?
199. effluvia, exhalations.
202. music of the spheres. The Greek
philosopher Pythagoras taught
that the planets in their rota-
tion gave forth sounds or notes,
each emitting a note higher than 214.
that next, thus completing the
entire octave. This was called
the "music of the spheres."
208. sensual = sensuous or material.
"The eyes [of the European mole] are two black glittering points, about the size of mustard seed, concealed and protected by the surrounding skin and hair" [dim curtain].-Appletons' Cyclopædia.—“ Beam' (literally a collection of rays emitted from any luminous body) has reference to the supposed wonderful power of sight possessed by the lynx. tainted green: that is, a field in which is the scent or odor of game.
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly* true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with.thine!
'Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier—
Forever separate, yet forever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied!
What thin partitions sense from thought divide !
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass the insuperable* line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these powers in one?
See, through this air, this ocean and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing. On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled,
Being on being wrecked, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread order break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-O madness! pride! impiety!
What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repined
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd* for any part to claim
To be another in this general frame;
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing Mind of all ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
251-256. Let earth... God. The meaning here is, should earth
tre and nature would tremble,
fly unbalanced from its centre, 262. to serve mere engines: that is, to
then would planets and suns
run lawless through the sky. 263.
So, also, if ruling angels should,
etc., then heaven's whole foun- 269.
dations would nod to their cen-
serve as mere engines.
Just as absurd: that is, to do so
would be just as absurd, etc.
That. The antecedent is "soul"
the soul of the universe, God.
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