The speaker begins with a quiet confession: she used to think the natural world could satisfy her completely. Then human connection broke in and swallowed that old sufficiency, like a flame snatched up by a sudden shift in perspective. That first encounter with human nature opened the door to something even larger—the divine. She describes a brief, almost breathless struggle to stretch herself wide enough to hold these tremendous experiences. The insight she lands on is both simple and immense. Our inner capacity isn’t fixed; it grows to match what we take in. Give your life room for a giant, and you’ll live with a giant—not some shrunken, timid version of existence. The mood is one of startled expansion: a mind moving from self-contained solitude toward a vastness that love and spirit demand, and finding it can, after all, rise to the occasion.
I thought that nature was enough — Summary
I thought that nature was enough Till Human nature came But that the other did absorb As Parallax a Flame --
Of Human nature just aware There added the Divine Brief struggle for capacity The power to contain
Is always as the contents But give a Giant room And you will lodge a Giant And not a smaller man