The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.
Know, nature's children all divide her care;
The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear.
While man exclaims, "See all things for my use
"See man for mine?" replies a pamper'd goose:
And just as short of reason he must fall,
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
Grant that the pow'rful still the weak control,
Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole :
Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows,
And helps, another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove?
Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods;
For some his int'rest prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:
All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy
The extensive blessing of his luxury.
That very life his learned hunger craves,
He saves from famine, from the savage saves :
Nay, feasts the animal, he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being, makes it blest;
Which sees no more the stroke, nor feels the pain,
Than favour'd man by touch ethereal slain :
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish when thy feast is o'er.
To each unthinking being, Heav'n, a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end;
To man imparts it; but with such a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too :
The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heav'n 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,
And find the means proportioned to their end.
Say, where full instinct is th' unerring guide,
What pope or council can they need beside?
Reason, however able, cool at best,
Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,
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 pow'rs,
One in their nature, which are two in our's;
And reason raise o'er instinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, and 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,
Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore
Heav'ns 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
Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds:
But, as he fram'd the whole, the whole to bless,
On mutual wants built mutual happiness :
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 roll 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;
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,
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,
At once extend the int'rest and the love;
With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn;
Each virtue in each passion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rose,
These nat❜ral love maintain'd, habitual those :
The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Mem'ry and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combin❜d,
Still spread the int'rest, and preserv'd 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.
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 cloth'd him, and no murder fed.
In the same temple, the resounding wood,
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest,
Unbrib'd, 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 gen'ral 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;
Thus then to man the voice of nature spake-
Go, from the creatures thy instruction take :
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; *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,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
"Here too all forms of social union find,
"And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind :
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aerial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ant's 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 sep❜rate cells and properties maintain.
"Mark what unvary'd laws preserves each state,
"Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fa...
Entangle justice in her net of law,
"In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw,
"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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