The plot contrived, before the break of day
  Saint Reynard through the hedge had made his way;
  The pale was next, but proudly with a bound
  He leapt the fence of the forbidden ground: 
  Yet fearing to be seen, within a bed
  Of coleworts he conceal’d his wily head;
  Then skulk’d till afternoon, and watch’d his time
  (As murderers use) to perpetrate his crime.

    Oh, hypocrite, ingenious to destroy! 
  Oh, traitor, worse than Sinon was to Troy! 500
  Oh, vile subverter of the Gallic reign,
  More false than Gano was to Charlemagne! 
  Oh, Chanticleer, in an unhappy hour
  Didst thou forsake the safety of thy bower! 
  Better for thee thou hadst believed thy dream,
  And not that day descended from the beam. 
  But here the doctors eagerly dispute: 
  Some hold predestination absolute;
  Some clerks maintain, that Heaven at first foresees,
  And in the virtue of foresight decrees. 510
  If this be so, then prescience binds the will,
  And mortals are not free to good or ill;
  For what he first foresaw, he must ordain,
  Or its eternal prescience may be vain: 
  As bad for us as prescience had not been: 
  For first, or last, he’s author of the sin. 
  And who says that, let the blaspheming man
  Say worse even of the devil, if he can. 
  For how can that Eternal Power be just
  To punish man, who sins because he must? 520
  Or, how can he reward a virtuous deed,
  Which is not done by us; but first decreed?

    I cannot bolt this matter to the bran,
  As Bradwardin and holy Austin can;
  If prescience can determine actions so
  That we must do, because he did foreknow,
  Or that, foreknowing, yet our choice is free,
  Not forced to sin by strict necessity;
  This strict necessity they simple call,
  Another sort there is conditional. 530
  The first so binds the will, that things foreknown
  By spontaneity, not choice, are done. 
  Thus galley-slaves tug willing at their oar,
  Content to work, in prospect of the shore;
  But would not work at all if not constrain’d before. 
  That other does not liberty constrain,
  But man may either act, or may refrain. 
  Heaven made us agents free to good or ill,
  And forced it not, though he foresaw the will. 
  Freedom was first bestow’d on human race, 540
  And prescience only held the second place.

    If he could make such agents wholly free,
  I not dispute, the point’s too high for me;
  For Heaven’s unfathom’d power what man can sound,
  Or put to his Omnipotence a bound? 
  He made us to his image, all agree;
  That image is the soul, and that must be,
  Or not, the Maker’s image, or be free. 
  But whether it were better man had been