According to Pope

Today is Alexander Pope's 324th birthday. Part of his poem, "An Essay on Man," was featured on the Writer's Almanac today. Here's the excerpt, with some of my photos interspersed.

ALL are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;

That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent:
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part;

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns
As the rapt Seraphim, that sings and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small—
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all....

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.

~