Page:An Essay on Man - Pope (1751).pdf/48

 She, 'midst the light'ning'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 pow'r 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, Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust; Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe. Zeal then, not charity, became the guide, And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride. Then sacred seem'd th' etherial vault no more; Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore; Then first the flamen tasted living food, Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood; With heav'n's own thunder 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 pow'r, 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 will, when many wills rebel? How shall we keep, what, sleeping or awake, A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?