298
On the Nature of Man.
Why am I not a hundred cubits high?
Why can't I travel swiftly through the sky?
Why can't I teach the erring moon her way?
Why am I not awake both night and day?
Why can't I prove, inflamed by amorous fire,
In one month, of a hundred sons, the sire?
Why, in one day, was all my ardor past?"
"Your questions," said the God, "will always last:
Soon will your doubts and scruples all be o'er,
For truth you must the ideal world explore."
Even then an angel bore him from the place,
Far as the centre of unbounded space;
O'er suns, which circling planets still surround,
Moons, rings and comets, which no limits bound:
A globe he entered, where the hand divine
Of nature's God had traced his great design;
The eye can there each real system scan,
And of each system possible the plan.
Now animating hopes the sage inspire,
He seeks a world made to his heart's desire:
He sought in vain; the angel made him know,
That what he wished could ne'er exist below;
For could man, giant-like, with heaven engage,
Or rather war against right reason wage.
Had God extended in this earthly sphere
His life up to his twenty-thousandth year,
This mass of earth and water ne'er could find
Room for the overgrown, gigantic kind.
Reasons like these the cavillers confound,
He owns, each being has its proper bound;
Why can't I travel swiftly through the sky?
Why can't I teach the erring moon her way?
Why am I not awake both night and day?
Why can't I prove, inflamed by amorous fire,
In one month, of a hundred sons, the sire?
Why, in one day, was all my ardor past?"
"Your questions," said the God, "will always last:
Soon will your doubts and scruples all be o'er,
For truth you must the ideal world explore."
Even then an angel bore him from the place,
Far as the centre of unbounded space;
O'er suns, which circling planets still surround,
Moons, rings and comets, which no limits bound:
A globe he entered, where the hand divine
Of nature's God had traced his great design;
The eye can there each real system scan,
And of each system possible the plan.
Now animating hopes the sage inspire,
He seeks a world made to his heart's desire:
He sought in vain; the angel made him know,
That what he wished could ne'er exist below;
For could man, giant-like, with heaven engage,
Or rather war against right reason wage.
Had God extended in this earthly sphere
His life up to his twenty-thousandth year,
This mass of earth and water ne'er could find
Room for the overgrown, gigantic kind.
Reasons like these the cavillers confound,
He owns, each being has its proper bound;
