MAN is permitted much <br /> To scan and learn <br /> In Nature’s frame; <br /> Till he well-nigh can tame <br /> Brute mischiefs, and can touch <br /> Invisible things, and turn <br />All warring ills to purposes of good. <br /> Thus, as a god below, <br /> He can control, <br />And harmonize, what seems amiss to flow <br /> As sever’d from the whole <br /> And dimly understood. <br /> <br /> But o’er the elements <br /> One Hand alone, <br /> One Hand has sway. <br /> What influence day by day <br /> In straiter belt prevents <br /> The impious Ocean, thrown <br />Alternate o’er the ever-sounding shore? <br /> Or who has eye to trace <br /> How the Plague came? <br />Forerun the doublings of the Tempest’s race? <br /> Or the Air’s weight and flame <br /> On a set scale explore? <br /> <br /> Thus God has will’d <br /> That man, when fully skill’d, <br /> Still gropes in twilight dim; <br /> Encompass’d all his hours <br /> By fearfullest powers <br /> Inflexible to him. <br /> That so he may discern <br /> His feebleness, <br /> And e’en for earth’s success <br /> To Him in wisdom turn, <br />Who holds for us the keys of either home, <br /> Earth and the world to come.<br /><br />John Henry Newman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-elements/
