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That men may say, when we the front-box

grace,

'Behold the first in virtue as in face!' Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day, Charmed the small-pox, or chased old age

away,

Who would not scorn what housewife's cares. produce,

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Or who would learn one earthly thing of use?
To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint,
Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.
But since, alas! frail beauty must decay; 25
Curled or uncurled, since locks will turn to
grey;

Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade, And she who scorns a man must die a maid; What then remains but well our power to use, And keep good humour still, whate'er we lose? And trust me, dear! good humour can prevail, When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail. 32 Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

So spoke the dame, but no applause ensued; Belinda frowned, Thalestris called her prude.] "To arms, to arms!" the fierce virago1 cries, And swift as lightning to the combat flies. 38 All side in parties, and begin th' attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack;

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Heroes' and heroines' shouts confus'dly rise, And bass and treble voices strike the skies. No common weapons in their hands are found, Like gods they fight, nor dread a mortal wound.

So when bold Homer makes the gods engage,

45 And heavenly breasts with human passions rage;

'Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms; And all Olympus rings with loud alarms: Jove's thunder roars, Heaven trembles all around,

Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound: 50

Earth shakes her nodding towers, the ground

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See, fierce Belinda on the Baron flies, With more than usual lightning in her eyes; Nor feared the chief th' unequal fight to try, Who sought no more than on his foe to die. But this bold lord with manly strength endued,

She with one finger and a thumb subdued: 80 Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw; [The gnomes direct, to every atom just, The pungent grains of titillating dust.] Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows,

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eyes:

(So Rome's great founder to the heavens withdrew,

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To Proculus1 alone confessed in view)
A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,
And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.
Not Berenice's locks 2 first rose so bright,
The heavens bespangling with dishevelled
light.

1 Cf. Livy, I, 6 2 The wife of Ptolemy Euergeles dedicated her hair for the safe return of her husband; upon its disappearance the astronomer Conon reported that it had been changed to the constellation Coma Berenices.

1[The sylphs behold it kindling as it flies, 131 And pleased pursue its progress through the skies.]

This the beau monde shall from the Mall 2

survey,

And hail with music its propitious ray.

1 [This the blest lover shall for Venus take, 135 And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake.2] This Partridge3 soon shall view in cloudless skies,

When next he looks through Galileo's eyes; 4 And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom

The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome. 140 Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair,

Which adds new glory to the shining sphere!
Not all the tresses that fair head can boast,
Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost.
For, after all the murders of your eye, 145
When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;
When those fair suns shall set, as set they
must,

And all those tresses shall be laid in dust: 148
This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.

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Ye rugged rocks! which holy knees have worn; Ye grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn!

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Shrines where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep,

And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!

Though cold like you, unmoved and silent grown,

I have not yet forgot myself to stone.
All is not Heaven's while Abelard has part, 25
Still rebel nature holds out half my heart;
Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse re-
strain,

Nor tears, for ages taught to flow in vain.

Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose, That well-known name awakens all my woes. Oh, name forever sad! forever dear! Still breathed in sighs, still ushered with a

tear.

I tremble too, where'er my own I find; Some dire misfortune follows close behind. Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow, Led through a sad variety of woe:

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35

Now warm in love, now withering in my bloom,

Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!
There stern religion quenched th' unwilling

flame,

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There died the best of passions, love and fame.
Yet write, oh! write me all, that I may join
Griefs to thy griefs, and echo sighs to thine.
Nor foes nor fortune take this power away;
And is my Abelard less kind than they?
Tears still are mine, and those I need not
spare,
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Love but demands what else were shed in
prayer;

No happier task these faded eyes pursue;
To read and weep is all they now can do.

Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief; Ah, more than share it, give me all thy grief. Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,

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How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot: Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned; Labour and rest, that equal periods keep; 211 "Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep; "2

Desires composed, affections ever even;

Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heaven.

Grace shines around her with serenest beams, And whispering angels prompt her golden dreams.

For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms, 217
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes;
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring;
For her white virgins hymenæals sing;
To sounds of heavenly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.

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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;

But vindicate the ways of God to man.

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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 Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known,

'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples every star,

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AN ESSAY ON MAN

May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies, 30
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Looked through? or can a part contain the
whole?

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee? 35 II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,

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Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites1 are less than Jove.
Of systems possible, if 'tis confessed
That wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as

man:

45

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, though laboured 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.

*

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From brutes what men, from men what spirits
know:

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Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his
blood.

Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, 85
That each may fill the circle marked by
Heaven:

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

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 confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored 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 given,
Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler
Heaven;

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105 Some safer world in depths of woods embraced,

Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land be-

hold,

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.

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VII. Far as creation's ample range extends, ascends. The scale of sensual,1 mental power Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass: What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,

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The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lioness between
And hound sagacious on the tainted green:

1 belonging to the senses

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