EPISTLE THE FIRST

Awake, my St John ! leave ail meaner tbings 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 ail this scène of man ; 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; The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of ail who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye nature s walks, shoot folly as it (lies.

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.

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 hère, From which to reason, or to which refer :

Through worlds unnuinber'd though the God be known, Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

ESSAI SUR L'HOMME