"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Monday, October 31, 2016

Alexander Pope - An Essay on Man: Epistle I





An Essay on Man: Epistle I

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To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things 
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 all this scene of man; 
A mighty maze! but not without a plan; 
A wild, where weeds and flow'rs 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 all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; 
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, 
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. 

I. 
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 here, 
From which to reason, or to which refer? 
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known, 
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. 
He, who through vast immensity can pierce, 
See worlds on worlds compose one universe, 
Observe how system into system runs, 
What other planets circle other suns, 
What varied being peoples ev'ry star, 
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are. 
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties, 
The strong connections, nice dependencies, 
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul 
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole? 

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, 
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee? 

II. 
Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, 
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind? 
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, 
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less! 
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made 
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? 
Or ask of yonder argent fields above, 
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove? 

Of systems possible, if 'tis confest 
That Wisdom infinite must form the best, 
Where all must full or not coherent be, 
And all that rises, rise in due degree; 
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain 
There must be somewhere, such a rank as man: 
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) 
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong? 

Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, 
May, must be right, as relative to all. 
In human works, though labour'd on with pain, 
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; 
In God's, one single can its end produce; 
Yet serves to second too some other use. 
So man, who here seems principal alone, 
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, 
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; 
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. 

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains 
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains: 
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, 
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God: 
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend 
His actions', passions', being's, use and end; 
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why 
This hour a slave, the next a deity. 

Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault; 
Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought: 
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place, 
His time a moment, and a point his space. 
If to be perfect in a certain sphere, 
What matter, soon or late, or here or there? 
The blest today is as completely so, 
As who began a thousand years ago. 

III. 
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, 
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state: 
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: 
Or who could suffer being here below? 
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, 
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? 
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food, 
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood. 
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, 
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n: 
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, 
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, 
And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; 
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore! 
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, 
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. 
Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 
Man never is, but always to be blest: 
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home, 
Rests and expatiates in a life to come. 

Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind 
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 
His soul, proud science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk, or milky way; 
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, 
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n; 
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd, 
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste, 
Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 
To be, contents his natural desire, 
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; 
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company. 

IV. 
Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense 
Weigh thy opinion against Providence; 
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, 
Say, here he gives too little, there too much: 
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, 
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust; 
If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care, 
Alone made perfect here, immortal there: 
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, 
Rejudge his justice, be the God of God. 
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies; 
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. 
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, 
Men would be angels, angels would be gods. 
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, 
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel: 
And who but wishes to invert the laws 
Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause. 

V. 
Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, 
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine: 
For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, 
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r; 
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew, 
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; 
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; 
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; 
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; 
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies." 

But errs not Nature from this gracious end, 
From burning suns when livid deaths descend, 
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep 
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? 
"No, ('tis replied) the first Almighty Cause 
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws; 
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began: 
And what created perfect?"—Why then man? 
If the great end be human happiness, 
Then Nature deviates; and can man do less? 
As much that end a constant course requires 
Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires; 
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, 
As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise. 
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design, 
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline? 
Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms, 
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, 
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind, 
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? 
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs; 
Account for moral, as for nat'ral things: 
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit? 
In both, to reason right is to submit. 

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, 
Were there all harmony, all virtue here; 
That never air or ocean felt the wind; 
That never passion discompos'd the mind. 
But ALL subsists by elemental strife; 
And passions are the elements of life. 
The gen'ral order, since the whole began, 
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man. 

VI. 
What would this man? Now upward will he soar, 
And little less than angel, would be more; 
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears 
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. 
Made for his use all creatures if he call, 
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all? 
Nature to these, without profusion, kind, 
The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd; 
Each seeming want compensated of course, 
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; 
All in exact proportion to the state; 
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. 
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: 
Is Heav'n unkind to man, and man alone? 
Shall he alone, whom rational we call, 
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all? 

The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) 
Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 
No pow'rs of body or of soul to share, 
But what his nature and his state can bear. 
Why has not man a microscopic eye? 
For this plain reason, man is not a fly. 
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, 
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n? 
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, 
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore? 
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, 
Die of a rose in aromatic pain? 
If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears, 
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, 
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still 
The whisp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill? 
Who finds not Providence all good and wise, 
Alike in what it gives, and what denies? 

VII. 
Far as creation's ample range extends, 
The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends: 
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race, 
From the green myriads in the peopled grass: 
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, 
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: 
Of smell, the headlong lioness between, 
And hound sagacious on the tainted green: 
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, 
To that which warbles through the vernal wood: 
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! 
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: 
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true 
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew: 
How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine, 
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine: 
'Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier; 
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near! 
Remembrance and reflection how allied; 
What thin partitions sense from thought divide: 
And middle natures, how they long to join, 
Yet never pass th' insuperable line! 
Without this just gradation, could they be 
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? 
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone, 
Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one? 

VIII. 
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 infinite 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 destroy'd: 
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 their centre nod, 
And nature tremble to the throne of God. 
All this dread order break—for whom? for thee? 
Vile worm!—Oh madness, pride, impiety! 

IX. 
What if the foot ordain'd the dust to tread, 
Or hand to toil, aspir'd to be the head? 
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd 
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? 
Just as absurd for any part to claim 
To be another, in this gen'ral frame: 
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, 
The great directing Mind of All ordains. 

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; 
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same, 
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame, 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent, 
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; 
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns; 
To him no high, no low, no great, no small; 
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. 

X. 
Cease then, nor order imperfection name: 
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. 
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree 
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee. 
Submit.—In this, or any other sphere, 
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear: 
Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r, 
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. 
All nature is but art, unknown to thee; 
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; 
All discord, harmony, not understood; 
All partial evil, universal good: 
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.


Alexander Pope as a young man

An Essay on Man: Epistle II

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I. 
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; 
The proper study of mankind is man. 
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, 
A being darkly wise, and rudely great: 
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, 
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, 
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; 
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; 
In doubt his mind or body to prefer; 
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; 
Alike in ignorance, his reason such, 
Whether he thinks too little, or too much: 
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd; 
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd; 
Created half to rise, and half to fall; 
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; 
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd: 
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! 

Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, 
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; 
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, 
Correct old time, and regulate the sun; 
Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, 
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; 
Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod, 
And quitting sense call imitating God; 
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, 
And turn their heads to imitate the sun. 
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule— 
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! 

Superior beings, when of late they saw 
A mortal Man unfold all Nature's law, 
Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape, 
And showed a Newton as we shew an Ape. 

Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, 
Describe or fix one movement of his mind? 
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend, 
Explain his own beginning, or his end? 
Alas what wonder! Man's superior part 
Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art; 
But when his own great work is but begun, 
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone. 

Trace science then, with modesty thy guide; 
First strip off all her equipage of pride; 
Deduct what is but vanity, or dress, 
Or learning's luxury, or idleness; 
Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain, 
Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain; 
Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts 
Of all our Vices have created Arts; 
Then see how little the remaining sum, 
Which serv'd the past, and must the times to come! 

II. 
Two principles in human nature reign; 
Self-love, to urge, and reason, to restrain; 
Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, 
Each works its end, to move or govern all: 
And to their proper operation still, 
Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill. 

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; 
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. 
Man, but for that, no action could attend, 
And but for this, were active to no end: 
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, 
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; 
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, 
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd. 

Most strength the moving principle requires; 
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. 
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, 
Form'd but to check, delib'rate, and advise. 
Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh; 
Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie: 
That sees immediate good by present sense; 
Reason, the future and the consequence. 
Thicker than arguments, temptations throng, 
At best more watchful this, but that more strong. 
The action of the stronger to suspend, 
Reason still use, to reason still attend. 
Attention, habit and experience gains; 
Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. 

Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, 
More studious to divide than to unite, 
And grace and virtue, sense and reason split, 
With all the rash dexterity of wit: 
Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, 
Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. 
Self-love and reason to one end aspire, 
Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire; 
But greedy that its object would devour, 
This taste the honey, and not wound the flow'r: 
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, 
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. 

III. 
Modes of self-love the passions we may call: 
'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all: 
But since not every good we can divide, 
And reason bids us for our own provide; 
Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair, 
List under reason, and deserve her care; 
Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim, 
Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name. 

In lazy apathy let Stoics boast 
Their virtue fix'd, 'tis fix'd as in a frost; 
Contracted all, retiring to the breast; 
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest: 
The rising tempest puts in act the soul, 
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. 
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, 
Reason the card, but passion is the gale; 
Nor God alone in the still calm we find, 
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. 

Passions, like elements, though born to fight, 
Yet, mix'd and soften'd, in his work unite: 
These 'tis enough to temper and employ; 
But what composes man, can man destroy? 
Suffice that reason keep to nature's road, 
Subject, compound them, follow her and God. 
Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, 
Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain, 
These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd, 
Make and maintain the balance of the mind: 
The lights and shades, whose well accorded strife 
Gives all the strength and colour of our life. 

Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes, 
And when in act they cease, in prospect, rise: 
Present to grasp, and future still to find, 
The whole employ of body and of mind. 
All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; 
On diff'rent senses diff'rent objects strike; 
Hence diff'rent passions more or less inflame, 
As strong or weak, the organs of the frame; 
And hence one master passion in the breast, 
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. 

As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, 
Receives the lurking principle of death; 
The young disease, that must subdue at length, 
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength: 
So, cast and mingled with his very frame, 
The mind's disease, its ruling passion came; 
Each vital humour which should feed the whole, 
Soon flows to this, in body and in soul. 
Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head, 
As the mind opens, and its functions spread, 
Imagination plies her dang'rous art, 
And pours it all upon the peccant part. 

Nature its mother, habit is its nurse; 
Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse; 
Reason itself but gives it edge and pow'r; 
As Heav'n's blest beam turns vinegar more sour. 
We, wretched subjects, though to lawful sway, 
In this weak queen some fav'rite still obey: 
Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules, 
What can she more than tell us we are fools? 
Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend, 
A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend! 
Or from a judge turn pleader, to persuade 
The choice we make, or justify it made; 
Proud of an easy conquest all along, 
She but removes weak passions for the strong: 
So, when small humours gather to a gout, 
The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out. 

Yes, nature's road must ever be preferr'd; 
Reason is here no guide, but still a guard: 
'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow, 
And treat this passion more as friend than foe: 
A mightier pow'r the strong direction sends, 
And sev'ral men impels to sev'ral ends. 
Like varying winds, by other passions toss'd, 
This drives them constant to a certain coast. 
Let pow'r or knowledge, gold or glory, please, 
Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease; 
Through life 'tis followed, ev'n at life's expense; 
The merchant's toil, the sage's indolence, 
The monk's humility, the hero's pride, 
All, all alike, find reason on their side. 

Th' eternal art educing good from ill, 
Grafts on this passion our best principle: 
'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, 
Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd; 
The dross cements what else were too refin'd, 
And in one interest body acts with mind. 

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, 
On savage stocks inserted, learn to bear; 
The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, 
Wild nature's vigor working at the root. 
What crops of wit and honesty appear 
From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear! 
See anger, zeal and fortitude supply; 
Ev'n av'rice, prudence; sloth, philosophy; 
Lust, through some certain strainers well refin'd, 
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; 
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, 
Is emulation in the learn'd or brave; 
Nor virtue, male or female, can we name, 
But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame. 

Thus nature gives us (let it check our pride) 
The virtue nearest to our vice allied: 
Reason the byass turns to good from ill, 
And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. 
The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline, 
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: 
The same ambition can destroy or save, 
And make a patriot as it makes a knave. 

IV. 
This light and darkness in our chaos join'd, 
What shall divide? The God within the mind. 

Extremes in nature equal ends produce, 
In man they join to some mysterious use; 
Though each by turns the other's bound invade, 
As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade, 
And oft so mix, the diff'rence is too nice 
Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice. 

Fools! who from hence into the notion fall, 
That vice or virtue there is none at all. 
If white and black blend, soften, and unite 
A thousand ways, is there no black or white? 
Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; 
'Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain. 

V. 
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 
But where th' extreme of vice, was ne'er agreed: 
Ask where's the North? at York, 'tis on the Tweed; 
In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there, 
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where: 
No creature owns it in the first degree, 
But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he! 
Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone, 
Or never feel the rage, or never own; 
What happier natures shrink at with affright, 
The hard inhabitant contends is right. 

VI. 
Virtuous and vicious ev'ry man must be, 
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree; 
The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise; 
And ev'n the best, by fits, what they despise. 
'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill, 
For, vice or virtue, self directs it still; 
Each individual seeks a sev'ral goal; 
But heav'n's great view is one, and that the whole: 
That counterworks each folly and caprice; 
That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice; 
That, happy frailties to all ranks applied, 
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, 
Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, 
To kings presumption, and to crowds belief, 
That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise, 
Which seeks no int'rest, no reward but praise; 
And build on wants, and on defects of mind, 
The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind. 

Heav'n forming each on other to depend, 
A master, or a servant, or a friend, 
Bids each on other for assistance call, 
'Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. 
Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally 
The common int'rest, or endear the tie: 
To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; 
Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, 
Those joys, those loves, those int'rests to resign; 
Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, 
To welcome death, and calmly pass away. 

Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, 
Not one will change his neighbour with himself. 
The learn'd is happy nature to explore, 
The fool is happy that he knows no more; 
The rich is happy in the plenty giv'n, 
The poor contents him with the care of heav'n. 
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, 
The sot a hero, lunatic a king; 
The starving chemist in his golden views 
Supremely blest, the poet in his Muse. 

See some strange comfort ev'ry state attend, 
And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend; 
See some fit passion ev'ry age supply, 
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. 

Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, 
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickl'd with a straw: 
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, 
A little louder, but as empty quite: 
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, 
And beads and pray'r books are the toys of age: 
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before; 
'Till tir'd he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er! 

Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays 
Those painted clouds that beautify our days; 
Each want of happiness by hope supplied, 
And each vacuity of sense by Pride: 
These build as fast as knowledge can destroy; 
In folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy; 
One prospect lost, another still we gain; 
And not a vanity is giv'n in vain; 
Ev'n mean self-love becomes, by force divine, 
The scale to measure others' wants by thine. 
See! and confess, one comfort still must rise, 
'Tis this: Though man's a fool, yet God is wise.






What Does the Poem Mean?

Wikipedia - An Essay on Man

An Essay on Man is a poem published by Alexander Pope in 1733-1734. It is an effort to rationalize or rather "vindicate the ways of God to man" (l.16), a variation of John Milton's claim in the opening lines of Paradise Lost, that he will "justify the ways of God to men" (1.26). It is concerned with the natural order God has decreed for man. Because man cannot know God's purposes, he cannot complain about his position in the Great Chain of Being (ll.33-34) and must accept that "Whatever IS, is RIGHT" (l.292), a theme that was satirized by Voltaire in Candide (1759). More than any other work, it popularized optimistic philosophy throughout England and the rest of Europe.

Pope's Essay on Man and Moral Epistles were designed to be the parts of a system of ethics which he wanted to express in poetry. Moral Epistles has been known under various other names including Ethic Epistles and Moral Essays.

On its publication, An Essay on Man received great admiration throughout Europe. Voltaire called it "the most beautiful, the most useful, the most sublime didactic poem ever written in any language". In 1756 Rousseau wrote to Voltaire admiring the poem and saying that it "softens my ills and brings me patience". Kant was fond of the poem and would recite long passages from it to his students.

Later however, Voltaire renounced his admiration for Pope's and Leibniz's optimism and even wrote a novel, Candide, as a satire on their philosophy of ethics. Rousseau also critiqued the work, questioning "Pope's uncritical assumption that there must be an unbroken chain of being all the way from inanimate matter up to God."

The essay, written in heroic couplets, comprises four epistles. Pope began work on it in 1729, and had finished the first three by 1731. They appeared in early 1733, with the fourth epistle published the following year. The poem was originally published anonymously; Pope did not admit authorship until 1735.

Pope reveals in his introductory statement, "The Design," that An Essay on Man was originally conceived as part of a longer philosophical poem, with four separate books. What we have today would comprise the first book. The second was to be a set of epistles on human reason, arts and sciences, human talent, as well as the use of learning, science, and wit "together with a satire against the misapplications of them." The third book would discuss politics, and the fourth book "private ethics" or "practical morality." Often quoted is the following passage, the first verse paragraph of the second book, which neatly summarizes some of the religious and humanistic tenets of the poem:

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.

Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun;
Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

Pope says that man has learnt about Nature and God's creation by using science; science has given man power but man intoxicated by this power thinks that he is "imitating God". Pope uses the word "fool" to show how little he (man) knows in spite of the progress made by science.


* * * * * * * * * * * *


Alexander Pope's Essay on Man: An Introduction

David Cody, Associate Professor of English, Hartwick College

The Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written, characteristically, in heroic couplets, and published between 1732 and 1734. Pope intended it as the centerpiece of a proposed system of ethics to be put forth in poetic form: it is in fact a fragment of a larger work which Pope planned but did not live to complete. It is an attempt to justify, as Milton had attempted to vindicate, the ways of God to Man, and a warning that man himself is not, as, in his pride, he seems to believe, the center of all things. Though not explicitly Christian, the Essay makes the implicit assumption that man is fallen and unregenerate, and that he must seek his own salvation.

The "Essay" consists of four epistles, addressed to Lord Bolingbroke, and derived, to some extent, from some of Bolingbroke's own fragmentary philosophical writings, as well as from ideas expressed by the deistic third Earl of Shaftsbury. Pope sets out to demonstrate that no matter how imperfect, complex, inscrutable, and disturbingly full of evil the Universe may appear to be, it does function in a rational fashion, according to natural laws; and is, in fact, considered as a whole, a perfect work of God. It appears imperfect to us only because our perceptions are limited by our feeble moral and intellectual capacity. His conclusion is that we must learn to accept our position in the Great Chain of Being — a "middle state," below that of the angels but above that of the beasts — in which we can, at least potentially, lead happy and virtuous lives.

Epistle I concerns itself with the nature of man and with his place in the universe; Epistle II, with man as an individual; Epistle III, with man in relation to human society, to the political and social hierarchies; and Epistle IV, with man's pursuit of happiness in this world. An Essay on Man was a controversial work in Pope's day, praised by some and criticized by others, primarily because it appeared to contemporary critics that its emphasis, in spite of its themes, was primarily poetic and not, strictly speaking, philosophical in any really coherent sense: Dr. Johnson, never one to mince words, and possessed, in any case, of views upon the subject which differed materially from those which Pope had set forth, noted dryly (in what is surely one of the most back-handed literary compliments of all time) that "Never were penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment so happily disguised." It is a subtler work, however, than perhaps Johnson realized: G. Wilson Knight has made the perceptive comment that the poem is not a "static scheme" but a "living organism," (like Twickenham) and that it must be understood as such.

Considered as a whole, the Essay on Man is an affirmative poem of faith: life seems chaotic and patternless to man when he is in the midst of it, but is in fact a coherent portion of a divinely ordered plan. In Pope's world God exists, and he is benificent: his universe is an ordered place. The limited intellect of man can perceive only a tiny portion of this order, and can experience only partial truths, and hence must rely on hope, which leads to faith. Man must be cognizant of his rather insignificant position in the grand scheme of things: those things which he covets most — riches, power, fame — prove to be worthless in the greater context of which he is only dimly aware. In his place, it is man's duty to strive to be good, even if he is doomed, because of his inherent frailty, to fail in his attempt. Do you find Pope's argument convincing? In what ways can we relate the Essay on Man to works like Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Johnson's "The Vanity of Human Wishes" (text), Tennyson's In Memoriam and Eliot's The Wasteland?


  


Saturday, September 24, 2016

Langston Hughes - Black Poems of Harlem


Harlem Poet Langston Hughes

Island
by Langston Hughes

Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now;
I see the island
Still ahead somehow.

I see the island
And its sands are fair;
Wave of sorrow,
Take me there.



Island by Langston Hughes (Poetry Reading)




Island by Langston Hughes (Poetry Reading)




Lonesome Place
by Langston Hughes

I got to leave this town.
It’s a lonesome place.
Got to leave this town cause
It’s a lonesome place.
A po’, po’ boy can’t
Find a friendly face.

Goin’ down to de river
Flowin’ deep an’ slow.
Goin’ down to de river
Deep an’ slow-
Cause there ain’t no worries
Where de waters go.

I’m weary, weary,
Weary, as I can be.
Weary, weary,
Weary as can be.
This life’s so weary,
‘S’ bout to overcome me.






Sea Calm
by Langston Hughes

How still,
How strangely still
The water is today,
It is not good
For water
To be so still that way.






Feet o' Jesus
by Langston Hughes

At the feet o' Jesus,
Sorrow like a sea.
Lordy, let yo' mercy
Come driftin' down on me.

At the feet o' Jesus
At yo' feet I stand.
O, ma little Jesus,
Please reach out yo' hand.







Thanksgiving Time
by Langston Hughes

When the night winds whistle through the trees and blow the crisp brown leaves a-crackling down,
When the autumn moon is big and yellow-orange and round,
When old Jack Frost is sparkling on the ground,
It's Thanksgiving Time!

When the pantry jars are full of mince-meat and the shelves are laden with sweet spices for a cake,
When the butcher man sends up a turkey nice and fat to bake,
When the stores are crammed with everything ingenious cooks can make,
It's Thanksgiving Time!

When the gales of coming winter outside your window howl,
When the air is sharp and cheery so it drives away your scowl,
When one's appetite craves turkey and will have no other fowl,
It's Thanksgiving Time!



Analysis of  the
Trumpet Player - Poem by Langston Hughes




Trumpet Player
by Langston Hughes

The Negro
With the trumpet at his lips
Has dark moons of weariness
Beneath his eyes
where the smoldering memory
of slave ships
Blazed to the crack of whips
about thighs

The negro
with the trumpet at his lips
has a head of vibrant hair
tamed down,
patent-leathered now
until it gleams
like jet-
were jet a crown

the music
from the trumpet at his lips
is honey
mixed with liquid fire
the rhythm
from the trumpet at his lips
is ecstasy
distilled from old desire-

Desire
that is longing for the moon
where the moonlight's but a spotlight
in his eyes,
desire
that is longing for the sea
where the sea's a bar-glass
sucker size

The Negro
with the trumpet at his lips
whose jacket
Has a fine one-button roll,
does not know
upon what riff the music slips

It's hypodermic needle
to his soul
but softly
as the tune comes from his throat
trouble
mellows to a golden note



Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance




Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance




My People
by Langston Hughes

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people
Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.



The Historical Context of the Harlem Renaissance




Madam And The Rent Man
by Langston Hughes

The rent man knocked.
He said, Howdy-do?
I said, What
Can I do for you?
He said, You know
Your rent is due.

I said, Listen,
Before I'd pay
I'd go to Hades
And rot away!

The sink is broke,
The water don't run,
And you ain't done a thing
You promised to've done.

Back window's cracked,
Kitchen floor squeaks,
There's rats in the cellar,
And the attic leaks.

He said, Madam,
It's not up to me.
I'm just the agent,
Don't you see?

I said, Naturally,
You pass the buck.
If it's money you want
You're out of luck.

He said, Madam,
I ain't pleased!
I said, Neither am I.
So we agrees!






I Continue to Dream
by Langston Hughes

I take my dreams and make of them a bronze vase
and a round fountain with a beautiful statue in its center.
And a song with a broken heart and I ask you:
Do you understand my dreams?
Sometimes you say you do,
And sometimes you say you don't.
Either way it doesn't matter.
I continue to dream.



I Continue to Dream by Langston Hughes




Justice
by Langston Hughes

That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.



Justice by Langston Hughes




5 Poems by Langston Hughes




I, Too
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America,

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
and be ashamed—

I, too, am America.



Mini bio of Langston Hughes




Biography of Langston Hughes


Langston Hughes' grand uncle, John Mercer Langston, was the first black congressman elected from Virginia in 1888. Born James Mercer Langston Hughes February 1, 1902, both of his parents were of mixed race. His mother Carrie (Caroline) Mercer Langston was a school teacher. His father, James Nathaniel Hughes, left the family when Langston was a child.

After his parents separated, Langston was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson, in Lawrence, Kansas. She impressed racial pride in the young Langston. When she died he went to live with family friends James and Mary Reed. During this time his mother had been seeking employment. He reunited with his mother after she re-married in Lincoln, Illinois.

He attended Columbia, but left left because of racial prejudice. Hughes then worked odd jobs and earned a B.A. From Lincoln University in 1929. His political views had developed left of center, but Arnold Rampersad writes that during WWII his views were more aligned with the center. Still, in 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy "forced him to...testify officially about his politics." But, the disgrace was soon conferred on the discredited McCarthy.

Langston Hughes was an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920's and 30's. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935 and established a theater troupe in Los Angeles. In addition to poetry he wrote short stories, plays, operas, novels, childrens' books and 2 autobiographies.

In the 1950's and 60's Hughes' fell out of favor with younger black writers who considered his views dated.

Langston Hughes died May 22, 1967 from complications from prostrate cancer.

-----

Biography - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes

Biography - Poem Hunter



Langston Hughes's Works

Poetry Collections

The Weary Blues, Knopf, 1926
Fine Clothes to the Jew, Knopf, 1927
The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations, 1931
Dear Lovely Death, 1931
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, Knopf, 1932
Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play, Golden Stair Press, N.Y., 1932
Let America Be America Again, 1938
Shakespeare in Harlem, Knopf, 1942
Freedom's Plow, 1943
Fields of Wonder, Knopf, 1947
One-Way Ticket, 1949
Montage of a Dream Deferred, Holt, 1951
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes, 1958
Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, Hill & Wang, 1961
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times, 1967
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Knopf, 1994


Novels and Short Story Collections

Not Without Laughter. Knopf, 1930
The Ways of White Folks. Knopf, 1934
Simple Speaks His Mind. 1950
Laughing to Keep from Crying, Holt, 1952
Simple Takes a Wife. 1953
Sweet Flypaper of Life, photographs by Roy DeCarava. 1955
Tambourines to Glory 1958
The Best of Simple. 1961
Simple's Uncle Sam. 1965
Something in Common and Other Stories. Hill & Wang, 1963
Short Stories of Langston Hughes. Hill & Wang, 1996


Non-fiction Books

The Big Sea. New York: Knopf, 1940
Famous American Negroes. 1954
I Wonder as I Wander. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1956
A Pictorial History of the Negro in America, with Milton Meltzer. 1956
Famous Negro Heroes of America. 1958
Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. 1962


Major Plays by Hughes

Mule Bone, with Zora Neale Hurston. 1931
Mulatto. 1935 (renamed The Barrier, an opera, in 1950)
Troubled Island, with William Grant Still. 1936
Little Ham. 1936
Emperor of Haiti. 1936
Don't You Want to be Free? 1938
Street Scene, contributed lyrics. 1947
Tambourines to glory. 1956
Simply Heavenly. 1957
Black Nativity. 1961
Five Plays by Langston Hughes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963.
Jericho-Jim Crow. 1964


Works for Children

Popo and Fifina, with Arna Bontemps. 1932
The First Book of the Negroes. 1952
The First Book of Jazz. 1954
Marian Anderson: Famous Concert Singer. with Steven C. Tracy 1954
The First Book of Rhythms. 1954
The First Book of the West Indies. 1956
First Book of Africa. 1964
Black Misery. Illustrated by Arouni. 1969, reprinted by Oxford University Press, 1994.



Friday, September 23, 2016

Elizabeth Akers Allen - Rock Me to Sleep





Rock Me to Sleep

by Elizabeth Akers Allen


Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,—
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap;—
Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between:
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I tonight for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! 

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,—
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead tonight,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

- Elizabeth Akers Allen



Rock Me To Sleep, Mother





Biography of Elizabeth Akers Allen

Elizabeth Chase Akers Allen (October 9, 1832, Strong, Maine – August 7, 1911, Tuckahoe, New York) was an American author, journalist and poet. Born Elizabeth Anne Chase, she grew up in Farmington, Maine, where she attended Farmington Academy. She began to write at the age of fifteen, under the pen name Florence Percy, and in 1855 published under that name a volume of poems entitled Forest Buds. In 1851 she married Marshall S. M. Taylor, but they were divorced within a few years. In subsequent years she travelled through Europe; in Rome she became acquainted with the feminist Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis. While in Europee she served as a correspondent for the Portland Transcript and the Boston Evening Gazette. She started contributing to the Atlantic Monthly in 1858[1]. She married Paul Akers, a Maine sculptor whom she had met in Rome, in 1860; he died in 1861. In 1865 she married E. M. Allen, of New York. In 1866 a collection of her poems was published in Boston.

Elizabeth Akers Allen's Works:

  • Forest Buds from the Woods of Maine (1855)
  • Poems (1866-1869)
  • Queen Catharine's Rose (1885)
  • The Silver Bridge (1885)
  • Two Saints (1888)
  • The High-Top Sweeting (1891)
  • The Proud Lady of Stavoven (1897)
  • The Ballad of the Bronx (1901)
  • The Sunset Song (1902)

Elizabeth Akers Allen Poems:

Backward, turn backward, O time, in your flight; Make me a child again, just for tonight! Mother, come back from that echoless shore;

At last, when all the summer shine That warmed life's early hours is past, Your loving fingers seek for mine

Oh, dainty daughters of the dawn, most delicate of flowers, How fitly do ye come to deck day's most delicious hours! Evoked by morning's earliest breath, your fragile cups unfold Before the light has cleft the sky, or edged the world with gold.

Two little feet, so small that both may nestle In one caressing hand, - Two tender feet upon the untried border Of life's mysterious land.

THIS realm is sacred to the silent past; Within its drowsy shades are treasures rare Of dust and dreams; the years are long since last

The last lone aster in the wood has died, And taken wings, and flown; The sighing oaks, the evergreens' dark pride, And shivering beeches, keep their leaves alone.

My heart is chilled and my pulse is slow, But often and often will memory go, Like a blind child lost in a waste of snow,

The time for toil is past, and night has come, The last and saddest of the harvest-eves; Worn out with labor long and wearisome, Drooping and faint, the reapers hasten home, Each laden with his sheaves.

Make me no vows of constancy, dear friend, To love me, though I die, thy whole life long, And love no other till thy days shall end -

It was the autumn of the year; The strawberry-leaves were red and sere; October's airs were fresh and chill, When, pausing on the windy hill,

Lo, what wonders the day hath brought, Born of the soft and slumbrous snow! Gradual, silent, slowly wrought;

Strange Truth and Beauty are enemies, Treading forever on each other's toes! Strange rhymes are always made of that which is

YOU who dread the cares and labors Of the tenant’s annual quest, You who long for peace and rest,

O lonesome sea-gull, floating far Over the ocean's icy waste, Aimless and wide thy wanderings are, Forever vainly seeking rest: -