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,[1068] From the green myriads in the peopled grass; 210 What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between,[1069] And hound sagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,[1070] 215 To that which warbles through the vernal wood! The spider's touch how exquisitely fine![1071] Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:[1072] In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?[1073] 220 How instinct varies in the grov'ling swine, Compared, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine![1074] 'Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier! For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and reflection how allied; 225 What thin partitions sense from thought divide;[1075] And middle natures, how they long to join, Yet never pass th' insuperable line![1076] Without this just gradation could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? 230 The pow'rs of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one? [Sidenote: How much further this gradation and subordination may extend, were any part of which broken the whole connected creation must be destroyed.]