[Illustration: Letter S.]
See through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of Being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see
No glass can reach; from Infinity to thee
From thee to Nothing.--On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where one step broken the great scale's destroyed
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten-thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world,
Heav'n's whole foundations to the centre nod,
And Nature trembles to the throne of God:
All this dread Order break--for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!--Oh, madness! pride! impiety!
What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand to toil, aspired to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repined
To serve--mere engines to the ruling Mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this general frame:
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing Mind of All ordains.
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