Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;

A mighty maze! but not without a plan :1

5

A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot;
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 sightless soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise:
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

I. Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?

Through worlds unnumbered, though the God be known, "Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples every star,

May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,

Gradations just, has thy pervading soul

Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole ?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,

And drawn, supports, upheld by God or thee?

10

15

20

20

25

25

30

II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, 35 Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?

First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,

Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller and stronger than the weeds they shade?

40

1 [In the first Edition,

"A mighty maze of walks without a plan." The name of the poet's friend, St. John, was not given in this edition, the poem opening with," Awake, my Lælius," &c.]

Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?

Of systems possible, if 'tis confess'd, That Wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must fall, or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree;

45

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 so long)

50

Is only this, if God has placed him wrong?
Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,

May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too, some other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,

55

Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

60

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains 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 Egypt's god:2
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's use and end;
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

65

Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge measured to his state and place;

70

His time a moment, and a point his space.

If to be perfect in a certain sphere, 3

What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest to-day is as completely so,

75

As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

All but the page prescribed, their present state :

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?

80

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven :

2 In the former Editions,

"Now wears a garland, an Ægyptian god."

85

8 [The four lines, 73-76, are not in the editions of 1735. Warburton says, they followed verse 68 in the first edition, the fourth line being then :

which, discrediting the Mosaic account of the creation and duration of the world, probably suggested the alteration.]

III.]

"Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind."

ESSAY ON MAN, Ep. i. lines 99, 100.
[Page 258.