THE EDITOR, Madam:
I WOULD be very grateful if anyone reading this can assist me in tracing the full text of a poem of which I have been fond from my teenage years. I first came across it in a publication I read in the early 1930s. I need it now for a special purpose. I give here the lines I recall, but these may not be in the order in which they occur in the poem, which had four verses in all.
When Nature Wants A Man
When Nature wants to build a man
And thrill a man, and skill a man
When nature wants to mould a
man to play a noble part,
When she yearns with all her heart
To create so great and bold a man,
That all the world shall praise
Watch her methods watch her ways
How she ruthlessly perfects whom she royally elects,
How she hammers him, and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him,
Into trial shapes of clay
which only nature understands,
Till his tortured heart is crying
and he lifts beseeching hands,
How she bends, but never breaks
When his good she undertakes
How she uses whom she chooses,
and with every purpose fuses him,
By every art induces him,
To try his splendour out -
Nature knows what she's about.
I appeal to librarians anywhere, and to Cultural Attaches in Embassies and High Commissions to seek out this poem for me. I do not recall the author's name.
Thanking you, Madam Editor.
I am etc.,
CLYDE HOYTE
P.O. Box 161
Half-Way Tree P.O.
Kingston 10
