Page:An Essay on Man - Pope (1751).pdf/44

 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 one to age; While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combin'd, Still spread the int'rest, and preserv'd the kind. think in nature's state they blindly trod; The state of nature was the reign of : 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 : The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undress'd, 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.