Читать книгу Voices for the Speechless - Various - Страница 36

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See him from Nature, rising slow to Art!

To copy Instinct, that was Reason's part;

Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake:—

"Go, from the creatures thy instructions take;

Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;

Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;

Thy arts of building from the bee receive;

Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;

Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.

Here, too, all forms of social union find,

And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:

Here subterranean works and cities see;

There towns aerial on the waving tree.

Learn each small people's genius, policies,

The Ant's republic, and the realm of Bees:

How those in common all their wealth bestow,

And Anarchy without confusion know;

And these forever, though a monarch reign,

Their sep'rate cells and properties maintain.

Mark what unvaryed laws preserve each state,

Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate.

In fine, thy Reason finer webs shall draw,

Entangle Justice in her net of Law,

And Right, too rigid, harden into Wrong;

Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.

Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway,

Thus let the wiser make the rest obey;

And, for those Arts mere Instinct could afford,

Be crowned as Monarchs, or as God adored."

Pope.