Classic Poem

( UPON THE WEAKNESS AND MISERY OF MAN .)

Who would believe that wicked earth,
Where Nature only brings us forth
To be found guilty and forgiv'n,
Should be a nursery for Heav'n;
When all we can expect to do
Will not pay half the debt we owe,
And yet more desperately dare,
As if that wretched trifle were
Too much for the eternal Pow'rs,
Our great and mighty creditors,
Not only slight what they enjoin,
But pay it in adulterate coin?
We only in their mercy trust,
To be more wicked and unjust;
All our devotions, vows, and pray'rs
Are our own interest, not theirs;
Our offerings, when we come to' adore,
But begging presents to get more;
The purest business of our zeal
Is but to err, by meaning well,
And make that meaning do more harm
Than our worst deeds, that are less warm;
For the most wretched and perverse
Does not believe himself he errs.
Our holiest actions have been
The' effects of wickedness and sin;
Religious houses made compounders
For the' horrid actions of the founders;
Steeples that totter'd in the air,
By letchers sinn'd into repair;
As if we had retain'd no sign
Nor character of the divine
And heavenly part of human nature,
But only the coarse earthy matter.
Our universal inclination
Tends to the worst of our creation,
As if the stars conspir'd to' imprint,
In our whole species, by instinct,
A fatal brand and signature
Of nothing else but the impure.
The best of all our actions tend
To the preposterousest end,
And, like to mongrels, we're inclin'd
To take most to the' ignobler kind;
Or monsters, that have always least
Of the' human parent, not the beast.
Hence 'tis we 've no regard at all
Of our best half original;
But, when they differ, still assert
The interest of the' ignobler part;
Spend all the time we have upon
The vain caprices of the one,
But grudge to spare one hour, to know
What to the better part we owe.
As in all compound substances,
The greater still devours the less;
So, being born and bred up near
Our earthy gross relations here,
Far from the ancient nobler place
Of all our high paternal race,
We now degenerate, and grow
As barbarous, and mean, and low,
As modern Grecians are, and worse,
To their brave nobler ancestors.
Yet as no barbarousness beside
Is half so barbarous as pride,
Nor any prouder insolence
Than that which has the least pretence;
We are so wretched to profess
A glory in our wretchedness,
To vapour sillily, and rant
Of our own misery and want,
And grow vain-glorious on a score
We ought much rather to deplore;
Who, the first moment of our lives,
Are but condemn'd, and giv'n reprieves,
And our great'st grace is not to know
When we shall pay 'em back, nor how,
Begotten with a vain caprich,
And live as vainly to that pitch.
Our pains are real things, and all
Our pleasures but fantastical:
Diseases of their own accord,
But cures come difficult and hard.
Our noblest piles, and stateliest rooms,
Are but outhouses to our tombs;
Cities, though e'er so great and brave,
But mere warehouses to the grave.
Our bravery's but a vain disguise,
To hide us from the world's dull eyes,
The remedy of a defect,
With which our nakedness is deckt;
Yet makes us swell with pride, and boast,
As if we 'ad gain'd by being lost.
All this is nothing to the evils
Which men, and their confederate devils
Inflict, to aggravate the curse
On their own hated kind much worse,
As if by Nature they'd been serv'd
More gently than their fate deserv'd,
Take pains (in justice) to invent,
And study their own punishment;
That, as their crimes should greater grow,
So might their own inflictions too.
Hence bloody wars at first began,
The artificial plague of man,
That from his own invention rise,
To scourge his own iniquities;
That if the heav'ns should chance to spare
Supplies of constant poison'd air,
They might not, with unfit delay,
For lingering destruction stay,
Nor seek recruits of death so far,
But plague themselves with blood and war.
And if these fail, there is no good
Kind Nature e'er on man bestow'd,
But he can easily divert
To his own misery and hurt;
Make that which Heaven meant to bless
The' ungrateful world with, gentle Peace,
With luxury and excess, as fast,
As war and desolation waste;
Promote mortality, and kill
As fast as arms, by sitting still;
Like earthquakes, slay without a blow,
And only moving, overthrow;
Make law and equity as dear
As plunder and free-quarter were,
And fierce encounters at the bar
Undo as fast as those in war;
Enrich bawds, whores, and userers,
Pimps, scriveners, silenc'd ministers;
That get estates by being' undone
For tender conscience, and have none.
Like those that with their credit drive
A trade, without a stock, and thrive;
Advance men in the church and state
For being of the meanest rate,
Rais'd for their double-guil'd deserts,
Before integrity and parts;
Produce more grievious complaints
For plenty, than before for wants,
And make a rich and fruitful year
A greater grievance than a dear;
Make jests of greater dangers far,
Than those they trembled at in war;
Till, unawares, they 've laid a train
To blow the public up again;
Rally with horror, and in sport,
Rebellion and destruction court;
And make Fanatics, in despite
Of all their madness, reason right,
And vouch to all they have foreshown,
As other monsters oft have done,
Although from truth and sense as far,
As all their other maggots are;
For things said false, and never meant,
Do oft prove true by accident.
That wealth, that bounteous Fortune sends
As presents to her dearest friends,
Is oft laid out upon a purchase
Of two yards long in parish churches,
And those too happy men that bought it
Had liv'd, and happier too, without it:
For what does vast wealth bring but cheat,
Law, luxury, disease, and debt;
Pain, pleasure, discontent, and sport,
An easy troubled life, and short?
But all these plagues are nothing near
Those, far more cruel and severe,
Unhappy man takes pains to find,
To' inflict himself upon his mind:
And out of his own bowels spins
A rack and torture for his sins;
Torments himself, in vain, to know
That most which he can never do;
And the more strictly 'tis denied,
The more he is unsatisfied;
Is busy in finding scruples out,
To languish in eternal doubt;
Sees spectres in the dark, and ghosts,
And starts, as horses do at posts,
And, when his eyes assist him least,
Discerns such subtle objects best.
On hypothetic dreams and visions
Grounds everlasting disquisitions,
And raises endless controversies
On vulgar theorems and hearsays;
Grows positive and confident,
In things so far beyond the' extent
Of human sense, he does not know
Whether they be at all or no,
And doubts as much in things that are
As plainly evident and clear;
Disdains all useful sense, and plain,
To' apply to the' intricate and vain;
And cracks his brains in plodding on
That which is never to be known;
To pose himself with subtleties,
And hold no other knowledge wise;
Although the subtler all things are,
They're but to nothing the more near;
And the less weight they can sustain,
The more he still lays on in vain,
And hangs his soul upon as nice
And subtle curiosities,
As one of that vast multitude
That on a needle's point have stood;
Weighs right and wrong, and true and false,
Upon as nice and subtle scales,
As those that turn upon a plane
With the' hundredth part of half a grain;
And still the subtiler they move,
The sooner false and useless prove:
So man, that thinks to force and strain,
Beyond its natural sphere, his brain,
In vain torments it on the rack,
And, for improving, sets it back;
Is ignorant of his own extent,
And that to which his aims are bent;
Is lost in both, and breaks his blade
Upon the anvil where 'twas made:
For as abortions cost more pain
Than vigorous births, so all the vain
And weak productions of man's wit
That aim at purposes unfit,
Require more drudgery, and worse,
Than those of strong and lively force.