Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series
Page 30
HEROES and KINGS! your distance keep;
In peace let one poor Poet sleep,
Who never flatter’d folks like you:
Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.
Another on the Same
UNDER this Marble, or under this Sill,
Or under this Turf, or ev’n what they will,
Whatever an Heir, or a Friend in his stead,
Or any good creature shall lay o’er my head,
Lies one who ne’er cared, and still cares not, a pin 5
What they said, or may say, of the mortal within;
But who, living and dying, serene, still and free,
Trusts in God that as well as he was he shall be.
On Two Lovers Struck Dead by Lightning
John Hughes and Sarah Drew. See Pope’s letter to Lady Mary written in September, 1718.
I
WHEN Eastern lovers feed the Funeral Fire,
On the same pile their faithful Fair expire;
Here pitying Heav’n that Virtue mutual found,
And blasted both, that it might neither wound.
Hearts so sincere th’ Almighty saw well pleas’d, 5
Sent his own lightning, and the victims seiz’d.
II
Think not by rig’rous judgment seiz’d,
A pair so faithful could expire;
Victims so pure Heav’n saw well pleas’d,
And snatch’d them in celestial fire. 10
III
Live well, and fear no sudden fate:
When God calls Virtue to the grave,
Alike ‘t is Justice, soon or late,
Mercy alike to kill or save.
Virtue unmov’d can hear the call, 15
And face the flash that melts the ball.
On John Gay
The subject is supposed to be John Gay.
WELL, then, poor G —— lies underground!
So there ‘s an end of honest Jack —
So little justice here be found,
‘T is ten to one he ‘ll ne’er come back.
AN ESSAY ON MAN
Composed in heroic couplets, this philosophical work was published in 1734 and written with the intention of presenting a system of ethics in poetic form. Pope intended The Essay on Man to develop into a much larger work, although he did not live to complete it. It is an attempt to ‘vindicate the ways of God to Man’, being a variation on Milton’s attempt in Paradise Lost to ‘justify the ways of God to Man’. The poem works on the assumption that man has fallen and must seek his own salvation.
Consisting of four epistles that are addressed to Lord Bolingbroke, the poem presents Pope’s view on a Universe which, though imperfect, complex and disturbing, still functions in a rational way according to the natural laws. These laws consider the Universe as a whole the perfected work of God. To humans it appears to be evil and imperfect in many ways. Nevertheless, Pope argues that this is due to our limited understanding and lack of intellectual capacity. Pope goes on to propose that humans must accept their position in the “Great Chain of Being”, which is at a middle stage between the angels and the beasts of the world. If we are able to accomplish this, then we could potentially lead happy and virtuous lives.
It is an affirmative work of faith, where life is presented as chaotic and confusing to man when he is in the centre of it, though it is without doubt divinely ordered. In Pope’s world, God exists in the very centre, providing an ordered structure. The limited intelligence of man can only imperfectly understand this order, experiencing only partial truths, hence man must rely on hope that then leads into faith.
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) was a politician, government official and political philosopher. He was a leader of the Tories, and supported the Church of England politically despite his antireligious views and opposition to theology. Bolingbroke was also Pope’s close friend and the dedicatee of this poem.
CONTENTS
Essay on Man: Epistle I.
Essay on Man: Epistle II.
Essay on Man: Epistle III.
Essay on Man: Epistle IV.
Essay on Man: Epistle I.
Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to the Universe
In Four Epistles to Lord Bolingbroke
THE DESIGN
Having proposed to write some pieces on Human Life and Manners, such as, to use my Lord Bacon’s expression, ‘come home to men’s business and bosoms,’ I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the abstract, his nature and his state: since to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.
The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind, as in that of the body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last; and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible and in forming a temperate, yet not inconsistent, and a short, yet not imperfect, system of ethics.
This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts, so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but it is true: I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning. If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.
What is now published is only to be considered as a general Map of Man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connexion, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow; consequently these epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage: to deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable.
Epistle I
Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to the Universe
ARGUMENT
Of Man in the abstract. I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations of systems and things, verse 17, etc. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown, verse 35, etc. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, verse 77, etc. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the cause of Man’s error and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of his dispensations, verse 113, etc. V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world which is not in the natural, verse 131, etc. VI. The unreasonableness of his
complaints against Providence, while, on the one hand, he demands the perfections of the angels, and, on the other, the bodily qualifications of the brutes; though to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree would render him miserable, verse 173, etc. VII. That throughout the whole visible world a universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. The gradations of Sense, Instinct, Thought, Reflection, Reason: that Reason alone countervails all the other faculties, verse 207, etc. VIII. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed, verse 213, etc. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, verse 209, etc. X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, verse 281, etc., to the end.
AWAKE, my ST. JOHN! leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of Kings.
Let us, since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die,
Expatiate free o’er all this scene of man; 5
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot,
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield; 10
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep or sightless soar;
Eye Nature’s walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, 15
But vindicate the ways of God to man.
I. Say first, of God above or Man below
What can we reason but from what we know?
Of man what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer? 20
Thro’ worlds unnumber’d tho’ the God be known,
‘T is ours to trace him only in our own.
He who thro’ vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs, 25
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples every star,
May tell why Heav’n has made us as we are:
But of this frame, the bearings and the ties,
The strong connexions, nice dependencies, 30
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
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?
II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, 35
Why form’d so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess
Why form’d no weaker, blinder, and no less!
Ask of thy mother earth why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade! 40
Or ask of yonder argent fields above
Why Jove’s satellites are less than Jove!
Of systems possible, if ‘t is confest
That wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must fall or not coherent be, 45
And all that rises rise in due degree;
Then in the scale of reas’ning life ‘t is plain
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man:
And all the question (wrangle e’er so long)
Is only this, — if God has placed him wrong? 50
Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, tho’ labour’d on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God’s, one single can its end produce, 55
Yet serve 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:
‘T is 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 dulness comprehend 65
His actions’, passions’, being’s, use and end;
Why doing, suff’ring, check’d, impell’d; and why
This hour a Slave, the next a Deity.
Then say not man’s imperfect, Heav’n in fault;
Say rather man’s as perfect as he ought; 70
His knowledge measured to his state and place,
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
What matter soon or late, or here or there?
The blest to-day is as completely so 75
As who began a thousand years ago.
III. Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know;
Or who could suffer being here below? 80
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 flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.
O blindness to the future! kindly giv’n, 85
That each may fill the circle mark’d by Heav’n;
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. 90
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.
What future bliss He gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 95
Man never is, but always to be, blest.
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests 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; 100
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-topt hill, an humbler Heav’n,
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 105
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; 110
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such; 115
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man’s unhappy, God’s unjust;
If man alone engross not Heav’n’s high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there: 120
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice, be the god of God.
In pride, in reas’ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies!
Pride still is aiming at the bless’d abodes, 125
&
nbsp; Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of order, sins against th’ Eternal Cause. 130
V. Ask for what end the heav’nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use, — Pride answers, ‘‘T is for mine:
For me kind Nature wakes her genial power,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev’ry flower;
Annual for me the grape, the rose, renew 135
The juice nectareous and the balmy dew;
For me the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.’ 140
But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
‘No,’ ‘t is replied, ‘the first Almighty Cause 145
Acts not by partial but by gen’ral laws;
Th’ exceptions few; some change since all began
And what created perfect?’ — Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can man do less? 150
As much that end a constant course requires
Of showers and sunshine, as of man’s desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temp’rate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav’n’s design, 155
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline?
Who knows but He, whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar’s mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? 160
From pride, from pride, our very reas’ning springs;
Account for moral as for natural things:
Why charge we Heav’n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, 165
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind,