EPISTLE II
By Alexander Pope (1688-1744).
[Analysis - NO or YES.]
EPISTLE I (extracts)
...
He, who thro' vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
...
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain that draws all to agree, -
And, drawn, supports - upheld by God or thee?
...
As of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade.
...
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the sale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man.
...
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god, -
...
Then say not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault, -
Say rather Man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place,
His time a moment, and a point his space.
...
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
...
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
...
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rest and expatiates in a life to come.
...
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, a humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To be, contents his natural desire;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire:
But things, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
...
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
...
Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use, Pride answers, "'Tis for mine!
"For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
"Suckles each herb and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
...
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there are harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But all subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The gen'ral Order since the whole began
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.
...
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 Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
...
The spider's tough how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
...
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
...
All this dread order break - for whom? for thee?
Vile worm! - oh madness! pride! impiety!
...
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood,
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.
...
Alas what wonder! Man's superior part
Uncheck'd may rise and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.
...
Two Principles in human nature reign;
Self-love, to urge, and Reason, to restrain;
...
Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh;
Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie:
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