When Nature Wants a Man

When Nature Wants A Man is a poem by Angela Morgan published in Forward, March (1918) by John Lane Company.

Adaptations

In Spiritual Leadership (1967), John Oswald Sanders published a poem beginning with the words "When God wants to drill a man" and credited it to author anonymous. Sanders' version replaces Angela Morgan's "Nature" with "God" and her feminine pronouns with masculine ones.

Excerpt from Sanders' 1967 Version

When God wants to drill a man

And thrill a man

And skill a man,

When God wants to mold a man

To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart

To create so great and bold a man

That all the world shall be amazed,

Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects

Whom He royally elects!

Excerpt from Morgan's 1918 Version

When Nature wants to drill a man

And thrill a man,

And skill a man,

When Nature wants to mould a man

To play the noblest 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