Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simple, and further from corruption?
Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?
Why dost thou, bull, and bore so seelily,
Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die,
Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?
Weaker I am, woe is me, and worse than you,
You have not sinned, nor need be timorous.
But wonder at a greater wonder, for to us
Created nature doth these things subdue,
But their Creator, whom sin nor nature tied,
For us, His creatures, and His foes, hath died.
This poem to me is asking why nature seems subservient to man. He asks, "Why do the prodigal elements supply life and food to me, being more pure than I, simple, and further from corruption." This is saying, why does something so pure provide for something so easily corruptible, such as a human being.
He also expands this to animals too, saying, "Why dost thou, bull and boar, so silly dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die, whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?" This line is imploring animals to explain why they allow us to slay them senselessly and harvest them, when they easily have the power to overturn our rule and claim the land as their own. Man is weak, and guilty of sin, but it goes on to say that nature and the animals have not sinned and need not be fearful. Nature subdues fears and wonder. But in the end, it states, "But their creator, whom sin nor nature tied, for us, his creatures, and his foes, hath died." I assume this line to mean that it is not man who suffers for his own sins, but rather nature and its inhabitants.photo by Fin Collins - www.fionnualacollins.com/.
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