The Elements

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