Famine, war, pestilence, fraud, envy, pride,
Injustice, idleness, lust, fury, fear,
Beneath these three great plagues securely hide.
Grounded on blind self-love, the offspring dear
Of Ignorance, they flourish and abide:--
Wherefore to root up Ignorance I'm here!



VIII.

_SELF-LOVE._

_Credulo il proprio amor._


Self-love fools man with false opinion
That earth, air, water, fire, the stars we see,
Though stronger and more beautiful than we,
Feel nought, love not, but move for us alone.
Then all the tribes of earth except his own
Seem to him senseless, rude--God lets them be:
To kith and kin next shrinks his sympathy,
Till in the end loves only self each one.
Learning he shuns that he may live at ease;
And since the world is little to his mind,
God and God's ruling Forethought he denies.
Craft he calls wisdom; and, perversely blind,
Seeking to reign, erects new deities:
At last 'I make the Universe!' he cries.