LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,103)
  • Text Authors (19,448)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)

Of Man and the Universe
 (Sung text for setting by M. Adaskin)
 See original
Language: English 
The great directing Mind of all ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul; 
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same, 
Great in the earth, as in th' aethereal frame, 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, 
Lives thro' all life, extends to all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent; 
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal parts, 
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
The great directing Mind of all ordains.
 ... 
Cease then, nor order imperfection name: 
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. 
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree 
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee. 
Submit. In this, or any other sphere, 
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear: 
Safe in the hand of one disposing power, 
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. 
All nature is but art, unknown to thee; 
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; 
All discord, harmony not understood; 
All partial evil, universal good.
The great directing Mind of all ordains.
 ... 

Composition:

    Set to music by Murray Adaskin (1906 - 2002), "Of Man and the Universe", 1967

Text Authorship:

  • by Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744), no title, taken from the end of "An Essay on Man".

Go to the general single-text view


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 29
Word count: 236

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris