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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 divineOf 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 sphereHis life up to his twenty-thousandth year,This mass of earth and water ne'er could findRoom for the overgrown, gigantic kind.Reasons like these the cavillers confound,He owns, each being has its proper bound;