direct.
      The war, methinks, has made
Our wit and learning narrow as our trade;
Instead of boldly sailing far, to buy
A stock of wisdom and philosophy,
      We fondly stay at home, in fear
      Of every censuring privateer;
Forcing a wretched trade by beating down the sale,
      And selling basely by retail.
  The wits, I mean the atheists of the age,
Who fain would rule the pulpit, as they do the stage,
  Wondrous refiners of philosophy,
    Of morals and divinity,
By the new modish system of reducing all to sense,
  Against all logic, and concluding laws,
    Do own th'effects of Providence,
    And yet deny the cause.

V

This hopeful sect, now it begins to see
How little, very little, do prevail
      Their first and chiefest force
    To censure, to cry down, and rail,
Not knowing what, or where, or who you be,
    Will quickly take another course:
      And, by their never-failing ways
    Of solving all appearances they please,
We soon shall see them to their ancient methods fall,
And straight deny you to be men, or anything at all.
  I laugh at the grave answer they will make,
Which they have always ready, general, and cheap:
  'Tis but to say, that what we daily meet,
    And by a fond mistake
Perhaps imagine to be wondrous wit,
And think, alas! to be by mortals writ,
Is but a crowd of atoms justling in a heap:
      Which, from eternal seeds begun,
Justling some thousand years, till ripen'd by the sun:
  They're now, just now, as naturally born,
  As from the womb of earth a field of corn.

VI

    But as for poor contented me,
Who must my weakness and my ignorance confess,
That I believe in much I ne'er can hope to see;
    Methinks I'm satisfied to guess,
  That this new, noble, and delightful scene,
Is wonderfully moved by some exalted men,
Who have well studied in the world's disease,
(That epidemic error and depravity,
    Or in our judgment or our eye,)
That what surprises us can only please.
We often search contentedly the whole world round,
  To make some great discovery,
    And scorn it when 'tis found.
Just so the mighty Nile has suffer'd in its fame,
  Because 'tis said (and perhaps only said)
We've found a little inconsiderable head,
    That feeds the huge unequal stream.
Consider human folly, and you'll quickly own,
    That all the praises it can give,
By which some fondly boast they shall for ever live,
  Won't pay th'impertinence of being known:
    Else why should the famed Lydian king,[4]
(Whom all the charms of an usurped wife and state,
With all that power unfelt, courts mankind to be great,
  Did with new unexperienced glories wait,)
Still wear, still dote on his invisible ring?

VII

  Were I to form a regular thought of Fame,
  Which is, perhaps, as hard t'imagine right,
    As to paint Echo to the sight,
I would not draw the idea from an empty name;
    Because, alas! when we all die,
  Careless and ignorant posterity,
  Although they praise the learning and the wit,
    And though the title seems to show
  The name and man by whom the book was writ,
    Yet how shall they be brought to know,
Whether that very name was he, or you, or I?
Less should I daub it o'er with transitory praise,
    And water-colours of these days:
These days! where e'en th'extravagance of poetry
  Is at a loss for figures to express
  Men's folly, whimseys, and inconstancy,
  And by a faint description makes them less.
Then tell us what is Fame, where shall we search for it?
Look where exalted Virtue and Religion sit,
      Enthroned with heavenly Wit!
      Look where you see
  The greatest scorn of learned vanity!
  (And then how much a nothing is mankind!
Whose reason is weigh'd down by popular air,
  Who, by that, vainly talks of baffling death;
  And hopes to lengthen life by a transfusion of breath,
    Which yet whoe'er examines right will find
  To be an art as vain as bottling up of wind!)
And when you find out these, believe true Fame is there,
  Far above all reward, yet to which all is due:
  And this, ye great unknown! is only known in you.

VIII

  The juggling sea-god,[5] when by chance trepann'd
By some instructed querist sleeping on the sand,
  Impatient of all answers, straight became
  A stealing brook, and strove to creep away
    Into his native sea,
  Vex'd at their follies, murmur'd in his stream;
  But disappointed of his fond desire,
  Would vanish in a pyramid of fire.
  This surly, slippery God, when he design'd
    To furnish his escapes,
  Ne'er borrow'd more variety of shapes
Than you, to please and satisfy mankind,
And seem (almost) transform'd to water, flame, and air,
  So well you answer all phenomena there:
Though madmen and the wits, philosophers and fools,
With all that factious or enthusiastic dotards dream,
And all the incoherent jargon of the schools;
  Though all the fumes of fear, hope, love, and shame,
Contrive to shock your minds with many a senseless doubt;
Doubts where the Delphic God would grope in ignorance and night,
    The God of learning and of light
  Would want a God himself to help him out.

IX

  Philosophy, as it before us lies,
Seems to have borrow'd some ungrateful taste
  Of doubts, impertinence, and niceties,
    From every age through which it pass'd,
But always with a stronger relish of the last.
  This beauteous queen, by Heaven design'd
  To be the great original
For man to dress and polish his uncourtly mind,
In what mock habits have they put her since the fall!
  More oft in fools' and madmen's hands than sages',
    She seems a medley of all ages,
With a huge farthingale to swell her fustian stuff,
  A new commode, a topknot, and a ruff,
  Her face patch'd o'er with modern pedantry,
      With a long sweeping train
Of comments and disputes, ridiculous and vain,
    All of old cut with a new dye:
    How soon have you restored her charms,
  And rid her of her lumber and her books,
    Drest her again genteel and neat,
      And rather tight than great!
How fond we are to court her to our arms!
  How much of heaven is in her naked looks!

X

Thus the deluding Muse oft blinds me to her ways,
  And ev'n my very thoughts transfers
  And changes all to beauty and the praise
    Of that proud tyrant sex of hers.
    The rebel Muse, alas! takes part,
    But with my own rebellious heart,
And you with fatal and immortal wit conspire
      To fan th'unhappy fire.
    Cruel unknown! what is it you intend?
Ah! could you, could you hope a poet for your friend!
  Rather forgive what my first transport said:
May all the blood, which shall by woman's scorn be shed,
  Lie upon you and on