POPE. 305 



Heaven 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 would suffer being here below? 



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 flowery_food, 



And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. 



O, blindness to the future kindly given 



That each may fill the circle meant by heaven ! 



Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 



A hero perish or a sparrow fall, 



Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, 



And now a bubble burst, and now a world 



Now, if heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate/ why 

 should not the lamb skip and play, if he had the reason of 

 man ? Why, because he would then be able to read the book of 

 fate. But if man himself cannot, why, then, could the lamb 

 with the reason of man ? For, if the lamb had the reason of 

 man, the book of fate would still be hidden, so far as himself 

 was concerned. If the inferences we can draw from appear 

 ances are equivalent to a knowledge of destiny, the knowing 

 enough to take an umbrella in cloudy weather might be called 

 so. There is a manifest confusion between what we know 

 about ourselves and about other people ; the whole point of the 

 passage being that we are always mercifully blinded to our own 

 future, however much reason we may possess. There is also 

 inaccuracy as well as inelegance in saying, 



Heaven, 



Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 

 A hero perish or a sparrow fall. 



To the last verse Warburton, desirous of reconciling his author 

 with Scripture, appends a note referring to Matthew x. 29: Are 

 not two sparrows sold for one farthing ? and one of them shall 

 not fall to the ground without your Father. It would not have 

 been safe to have referred to the thirty-first verse : Fear ye 

 not, therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. 



To my feeling, one of the most beautiful passages in the whole 

 poem is that familiar one: 



Lo, the poor Indian whose untutored 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 given 

 Behind the cloud-top hill a humbler heaven ; 

 Some safer_world in depth of woods embraced, 

 Some happier island in the watery waste, 

 Where slaves once more their native land behold, 

 No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 

 X 



