The Love Sonnets of Proteus, Vita Nova, LXXXIX: The Limit of Human Knowledge

There is a vice in the world's reasoning. Man
Has conquered knowledge. He has conquered power ;
He has traced out the universal plan
Of the Earth's being ; and in this last hour
He has unmade the God which he had made.
I cannot doubt but he at length has read
The riddle of the Earth ; that he is wise.
He also hath dominion charter
Over the lands, the oceans, and the skies,
Which toil and sweat to give him daily l»re;id.
— Knowledge he hath, and power upon the Earth,
And long ago he had himself been God,
But for the cruel secret of his birth,
Which gave him kindred with the dust he trod,
And for the hideous ending of his mirth,
A fly-blown carrion festering 'neath the sod.