{
 "id": "john-henry-newman/the-elements",
 "title": "The Elements",
 "ordinal": "CXII",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Henry Newman",
 "poet_slug": "john-henry-newman",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Verses on Various Occasions",
 "book_slug": "verses-on-various-occasions",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 112,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Verses on Various Occasions (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/a600744000newmuoft"
  ]
 },
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  "file": "verses-on-various-occasions.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009038168",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48927",
   "https://archive.org/details/dreamofgerontius01newmuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Man is permitted much",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To scan and learn",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "In Nature’s frame;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he well-nigh can tame",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Brute mischiefs and can touch",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Invisible things, and turn",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All warring ills to purposes of good.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus, as a god below,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "He can control,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And harmonize, what seems amiss to flow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As sever’d from the whole",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And dimly understood.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But o’er the elements",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "One Hand alone,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "One Hand has sway.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "What influence day by day",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In straiter belt prevents",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The impious Ocean, thrown",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Alternate o’er the ever-sounding shore?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or who has eye to trace",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How the Plague came?",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Forerun the doublings of the Tempest’s race?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or the Air’s weight and flame",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On a set scale explore?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus God has will’d",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That man, when fully skill’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still gropes in twilight dim;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Encompass’d all his hours",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By fearfullest powers",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Inflexible to him.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That so he may discern",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His feebleness.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And e’en for earth’s success",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To Him in wisdom turn,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who holds for us the keys of either home,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Earth and the world to come.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}