To make us but more wretched: Wisdom's eye
Acute, for what? to spy more miseries;
And worth, so recompensed, new-points their stings.
Or man surmounts the grave, or gain is loss,
And worth exalted humbles us the more.
Thou wilt not patronise a scheme that makes 236
Weakness and vice the refuge of mankind.
"Has virtue, then, no joys?"--Yes, joys dear-bought.
Talk ne'er so long, in this imperfect state,
Virtue and vice are at eternal war,
Virtue's a combat; and who fights for nought?
Or for precarious, or for small reward?
Who virtue's self-reward so loud resound, 243
Would take degrees angelic here below,
And virtue, while they compliment, betray,
By feeble motives, and unfaithful guards.
The crown, th' unfading crown, her soul inspires:
'Tis that, and that alone, can countervail
The body's treacheries, and the world's assaults:
On earth's poor pay our famish'd virtue dies. 250
Truth incontestible! in spite of all
A Bayle has preach'd, or a Voltaire believed.
In man the more we dive, the more we see
Heaven's signet stamping an immortal make.
Dive to the bottom of his soul, the base
Sustaining all; what find we? knowledge, love.
As light and heat, essential to the sun,
These to the soul. And why, if souls expire?
How little lovely here? how little known?
Small knowledge we dig up with endless toil; 260
And love unfeign'd may purchase perfect hate.
Why starved, on earth, our angel appetites;
While brutal are indulged their fulsome fill?
Were then capacities divine conferr'd,
As a mock-diadem, in savage sport,
Rank insult of our pompous poverty,
Which reaps but pain, from seeming claims so fair?
In future age lies no redress? and shuts
Eternity the door on our complaint?
If so, for what strange ends were mortals made! 270
The worst to wallow, and the best to weep;
The man who merits most, must most complain:
Can we conceive a disregard in heaven,
What the worst perpetrate, or best endure?
This cannot be. To love, and know, in man
Is boundless appetite, and boundless power;
And these demonstrate boundless objects too.
Objects, powers, appetites, Heaven suits in all;
Nor, nature through, e'er violates this sweet,
Eternal concord, on her tuneful string. 280
Is Man the sol