Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though labored on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God's, one single can its end produce; 55 Yet serves to second too some other use. So man, who here seems principal alone, 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; Then shall man's pride and dullness comprehend His actions', passions', being's, use and end; Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity. Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault; Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought: 70 Where slaves once more their native land Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the behold, IX. What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, Or hand to toil, aspired to be the head? 260 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, 265 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 Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne; View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to How happy he who crowns in shades like She, wretched matron, forced in age, for these A youth of labor with an age of ease; 100 Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state, 105 To spurn imploring famine from the gate; bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn; She only left of all the harmless train, 135 The sad historian of the pensive plain. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild; |