The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heaven assign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

II. Whether with reason or with instinct blest,
Know, all enjoy that power which suits them best;
To bliss alike by that direction tend,

75

80

And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full instinct is the unerring guide,
What pope or council can they need beside ? 4
Reason, however able, cool at best,

85

Cares not for service, or but serves when press'd,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honest instinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit;
While still too wide or short is human wit;
Sure by quick nature happiness to gain,
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 powers
One in their nature, which are two in ours;
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 wood

To shun their poison, and to choose their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels design,

100

Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?
Who bade the stork, Columbus-like, explore

105

Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?
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

110

Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds:
But as he framed a whole, the whole to bless,
On mutual wants built mutual happiness:

4 After ver. 84 in the MS.

"While man, with opening views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge strays:
Too weak to choose, yet choosing still in haste,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste."

66

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 through air, or shoots beneath the deeps,
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 rall along the flood,
Each loves itself, but not itself alone,
Each sex desires alike, till two are one.
Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace;

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120

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;
The young dismiss'd to wander earth or air,

125

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;
That longer care contracts more lasting bands:
Reflection, reason, still the ties improve,

130

At once extend the interest, 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 natural love maintain'd, habitual those :
The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Memory and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combined,

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145

Still spread the interest and preserved the kind.

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.

150

Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid;

Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade ;
The same his table, and the same his bed;

No murder clothed him, and no murder fed.

In the same temple, the resounding wood,

155

All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:

The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undress'd,
Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest :
Heaven's attribute was universal care,
And man's prerogative, to rule, but spare.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;
Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
But just disease to luxury succeeds,
And every death its own avenger breeds;
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;

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165

170

Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake :

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Go, from the creatures thy instructions take:

5

Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; 6
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;

5 ["They who discourse of the inventions and originals of things, refer them rather to beasts, birds, and fishes, and serpents, than to man. So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples, but almost all brute. Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree when she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, and to find the way from a field in flower a great way off to her hive? Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn she burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and grow?"-Bacon's Advancement of Learning.]

6 It is a caution commonly practised among navigators, when thrown upon

Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,7

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Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of social union find,

180

And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind :
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aërial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ants' republic, and the realm of bees;
How those in common all their wealth bestow,
And anarchy without confusion know;
And these for ever, though a monarch reign,
Their separate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw,
Entangle justice in her net of law,

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190

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,

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Thus let the wiser make the rest obey:

And for those arts mere instinct could afford,

Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods adored."

V. Great Nature spoke; observant man obey'd;

Cities were built, societies were made:

200

Here rose one little state; another near8

Grew by like means, and join'd, through love or fear.

a desert coast, and in want of refreshments, to observe what fruits have been touched by the birds; and to venture on these without further hesitation.

66

7 Oppian. Halieut., 1. i., describes this fish in the following manner:They swim on the surface of the sea, on the back of their shells, which exactly resemble the hulk of a ship; they raise two feet like masts, and extend a membrane between, which serves as a sail; the other two feet they employ as oars at the side. They are usually seen in the Mediterranean." 8 In the MS. thus:

"The neighbours leagued to guard the common spot;
And Love was Nature's dictate, Murder, not.

For want alone each animal contends;
Tigers with tigers, that removed are friends.

Plain Nature's wants the common mother crown'd,

She pour'd her acorns, herbs, and streams around.

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