"The Cause and Spring of motion from above Hung down on earth the golden chain of Love; Great was the effect, and high was his intent, When peace among the jarring seeds he sent; Fire, flood, and earth and air by this were bound, And Love, the common link, the new creation crowned. The chain still holds; for though the forms decay, Eternal matter never wears away: The same first mover certain bounds has placed, How long those perishable forms shall last; Nor can they last beyond the time assigned By that all-seeing and all-making Mind: Shorten their hours they may, for will is free, But never pass the appointed destiny. So men oppressed, when weary of their breath, Throw off the burden, and suborn their death. Then, since those forms begin, and have their end, On some unaltered cause they sure depend: Parts of the whole are we, but God the whole, Who gives us life, and animating soul. For Nature cannot from a part derive "That being which the whole can only give: He perfect, stable; but imperfect we, Subject to change, and different in degree; Plants, beasts, and man; and, as our organs are, We more or less of his perfection share. But, by a long descent, the etherial fire Corrupts; and forms, the mortal part, expire. As he withdraws his virtue, so they pass, And the same matter makes another mass: This law the omniscient Power was pleased to give, That every kind should by succession live; That individuals die, his will ordains; The propagated species still remains. The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees, Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees; Three centuries he grows, and three he stays, Supreme in state, and in three more decays: So wears the paving pebble in the street, And towns and towers their fatal periods meet: So rivers, rapid once, now naked lie, Forsaken of their springs, and leave their channels dry. So man, at first a drop, dilates with heat, Then, formed, the little heart begins to beat; Secret he feeds, unknowing, in the cell; At length, for hatching ripe, he breaks the shell, And struggles into breath, and cries for aid; Then helpless in his mother's lap is laid. He creeps, he walks, and, issuing into man, Grudges their life from whence his own began; Reckless of laws, affects to rule alone, Anxious to reign, and restless on the throne; First vegetive, then feels, and reasons last; Rich of three souls, and lives all three to waste. Some thus; but thousands more in flower of age, For few arrive to run the latter stage. Sunk in the first, in battle some are slain, And others whelmed beneath the stormy main. What makes all this, but Jupiter the king, At whose command we perish, and we spring? Then 'tis our best, since thus ordained to die, To make a virtue of necessity; Take what he gives, since to rebel is vain; The bad grows better, which we well sustain;