Page:An Essay on Man - Pope (1751).pdf/23

 If plagues or earthquakes break not heav'n's design, Why then a, or a ? Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a mind, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs; Account for moral, as for nat'ral things; Why charge we heav'n in those, in these acquit? In both to reason right is to submit. for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all 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. would this man? Now upward will he soar, And, little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say, what their use had he the pow'rs of all? Nature to these, without profusion kind, The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd; Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;