The powers of all subdued by thee alone, VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high, progressive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep extend below! Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from infinite to thee, 240 From thee to nothing. On superior powers Were we to press, inferior might on ours; Or in the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed: From nature's chain whatever link you strike, 245 And nature tremble to the throne of God. All this dread order break-for whom? for thee? Vile worm!-Oh, madness! pride! impiety! IX. What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head? 260 Whose body nature is, and God the soul; same; Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 271 Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone, Th' enormous faith of many made for one; That proud exception to all Nature's laws, T' invert the world, and counterwork its cause? Force first made conquest, and that conquest law; Till Superstition taught the tyrant awe, Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, And Gods of conquerors, Slaves of subjects made. She, 'midst the lightning's blaze and thunder's sound, When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground, She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray To Power unseen, and mightier far than they: She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw Gods descend, and Fiends infernal rise: Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bless'd abodes; Fear made her Devils, and weak hope her Gods; Gods, partial, changeful, passionate, unjust; With Heav'n's own thunders shook the world below, And play'd the God an engine on his foe. So drives Self-love thro' just and thro' unjust, To one man's power, ambition, lucre, lust: The same Self-love in all becomes the cause Of what restrains him, government and laws. For, what one likes if others like as well, What serves one well, when many wills rebel? How shall he keep what, sleeping or awake, Fore'd into virtue thus by self-defence, mind, Follower of God, or friend of human kind, Poet or patriot, rose but to restore The faith and moral Nature gave before; Relumed her ancient light, not kindled new; If not God's image, yet his shadow drew; Taught power's due use to people and to kings, Taught nor to slack nor strain its tender strings, The less or greater set so justly true, That touching one must strike the other too; Till jarring int'rest of themselves create From order, union, full consent of things; Where small and great, where weak and mighty made. To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade; More powerful each as needful to the rest, And, in proportion as it blesses, blest; For forms of government let fools contest; For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. In Faith and Hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is Charity: All must be false that thwart this one great end, And all of God that bless mankind or mend. Man, like the gen'rous vine, supported lives; The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run, And bade Self-love and Social be the same. VIRTUE ALEXANDER POPE [From An Essay on Man, 1733-4] Know then this truth (enough for man to know), "Virtue alone is happiness below;" The only point where human bliss stands still, And tastes the good without the fall to ill; For ever exercised, yet never tired; Yet poor with fortune, and with learning pany as frequent this place, there is not one which misleads men more than that of a "Fellow of a great deal of fire." This metaphorical term, Fire, has done much good in keeping coxcombs in awe of one another; but, at the same time, it has made them troublesome to everybody else. You see in the very air of a "Fellow of Fire," something so expressive of what he would be at that if it were not for self-preservation a man would laugh out. I had last night the fate to drink a bottle with two of these Firemen, who are indeed dispersed like the myrmidons in all quarters and to be met with among those of the most different education. One of my companions was a scholar with Fire; and the other a soldier of the same complexion. My learned man would fall into disputes and argue without any manner of provocation or contradiction: the other was decisive without words and would give a shrug or an oath to express his opinion. My learned man was a mere scholar and my man of war as mere a soldier. The particularity of the first was ridiculous, that of the second, terrible. They were relations by blood, which in some measure moderated their extravagances toward each other: I gave myself up merely as a person of no note in the company; but as if brought to be convinced that I was an inconsiderable thing, any otherwise than that they would show each other to me and make me spectator of the triumph they alternately enjoyed. The scholar has been very conversant with books and the other with men only; which makes them both superficial: for the taste of books is necessary to our behavior in the best company and the knowledge of men is required for a true relish of books: but they have both Fire, which makes one pass for a man of sense, the other for a fine gentleman. I found I could easily enough pass my time with the scholar for, if I seemed not to do justice to his parts and sentiments, he pitied me, and let me alone. But the warrior could not let it rest there; I must know all that happened within his shallow observations of the nature of the war: to all which he added an air of laziness, and contempt of those of his companions who were eminent for delighting in the exercise and knowledge of their duty. Thus it is that all the young fellows of much animal life and little understanding who repair to our armies usurp upon the conversation of reasonable men, under the notion of having Fire. The word has not been of greater use to shallow lovers to supply them with chat to their mistresses than it has been to pretended men of pleasure to support them in being pert and dull and saying of every fool of their order, "Such a one has Fire." There is Colonel Truncheon, who marches with divisions ready on all occasions; a hero who never doubted in his life but is ever positively fixed in the wrong, not out of obstinate opinion, but invincible stupidity. It is very unhappy for this latitude of London that it is possible for such as can learn only fashion, habit, and a set of common phrases of salutation, to pass with no other accomplishments, in this nation of freedom, for men of conversation and sense. All these ought to pretend to is not to offend; but they carry it so far as to be negligent whether they offend or not; "for they have Fire." But their force differs from true spirit as much as a vicious from a mettlesome horse. A man of Fire is a general enemy to all the waiters where you drink; is the only man affronted at the company's being neglected; and makes the drawers abroad, his valet de chambre and footman at home, know he is not to be provoked without danger. This is not the Fire that animates the noble Marinus, a youth of good nature, affability, and moderation. He commands his ship as an intelligence moves its orb: he is the vital life and his officers the limbs of the machine. His vivacity is seen in doing all the offices of life with readiness of spirit and propriety in the manner of doing them. To be ever active in laudable pursuits is the distinguishing character of a man of merit; while the common behavior of every gay coxcomb of Fire is to be confidently in the wrong and dare to persist in it. A VISION OF HUMAN LIFE [The Spectator, No. 159. September, 1711] -Omnem, quae nunc obducta tuenti When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several oriental manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met with one, 1 "I will take away wholly the cloud whose veil, cast over your eyes, dulls your mortal vision and darkles round you damp and thick." -John Conington. entitled The Visions of Mirzah, which I have read over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the public when I have no other entertainment for them and shall begin with the first vision, which I have translated, word for word, as follows: "On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to another, Surely, said I, man is but a shadow and life a dream. Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes toward the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him, he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from anything I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival in paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures. "I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt of a genius; and that several had been entertained with music who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts, by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleasures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand directed me to approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affability that familiarized him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions with which I approached him. lifted me from the ground, and taking me by the hand, Mirzah, said he, I have heard thee in thy soliloquies; Follow me. He "He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing me on the top of it, Cast thy eyes eastward, said he, and tell me what thou seest. I see, said I, a huge valley and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it. The valley that thou seest, said he, is the vale of misery, and the tide of water that thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity. What is the reason, said I, that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other? What thou seest, said he, is that portion of eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation. Examine now, said he, this sea that is bounded with darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it. I see a bridge, said I, standing in the midst of the tide. The bridge thou seest, said he, is human life; consider it attentively. Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, with several broken arches, which, added to those that were entire, made up the number about an hundred. As I was counting the arches, the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches; but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. But tell me further, said he, what thou discoverest on it. I see multitudes of people passing over it, said I, and a black cloud hanging on each end of it. As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the passengers dropping through the bridge, into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and upon further examination, perceived there were innumerable trapdoors that lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod upon but they fell through them into the tide and immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner toward the middle, but multiplied and lay closer together toward the end of the arches that were entire. "There were indeed some persons, but their number was very small, that continued a kind of hobbling march. on the broken arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a walk. "I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful structure, and the great |