However mistaken the judgment may be
Of the world which is never from ignorance free,
The parts we must play, which to us are assign’d,
According as God has enlighten’d our mind.
Of elements four did our Master create,
The earth and all in it with skill the most great;
Need I the world’s four materials declare—
Are they not water, fire, earth, and air?
Too wise was the mighty Creator to frame
A world from one element, water or flame;
The one is full moist and the other full hot,
And a world made of either were useless, I wot.
And if it had all of mere earth been compos’d,
And no water nor fire been within it enclos’d,
It could ne’er have produc’d for a huge multitude
Of all kinds of living things suitable food.
And if God what was wanted had not fully known,
But created the world of these three things alone,
How would any creature the heaven beneath,
Without the blest air have been able to breathe?
Thus all things created, the God of all grace,
Of four prime materials, each good in its place.
The work of His hands, when completed, He view’d,
And saw and pronounc’d that ’twas seemly and good.
Poverty.
In the marvellous things, which to me thou hast told
The wisdom of God I most clearly behold,
And did He not also make man of the same
Materials He us’d when the world He did frame?
Riches.
Creation is all, as the sages agree,
Of the elements four in man’s body that be;
Water’s the blood, and fire is the nature
Which prompts generation in every creature.