III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know; Or who could suffer being here below?[1010] 80 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.[1011] O blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, 85 That each may fill the circle marked by heav'n: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,[1012] Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,[1013] And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90 [Sidenote: And on his hope of a relation to a future state.] 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.[1014] Hope springs eternal in the human breast; 95 Man never is, but always to be blessed.[1015] The soul, uneasy, and confined from[1016] home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;[1017] 100 His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk[1018] or milky way;[1019] Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, Behind the cloud-topped hill,[1020] an humbler heav'n; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 105 Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,[1021] Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.[1022] To be, contents his natural desire; He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; 110 But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.[1023] [Sidenote: The pride of aiming at more knowledge and perfection, and the impiety of pretending to judge of the dispensations of Providence, the causes of man's error and misery.]