WHAT countless years and wealth of brain were spent To bring us hither from our caves and huts, And trace through pathless wilds the deep-worn ruts Of faith and habit, by whose deep indent Prudence may guide if genius be not lent, — Genius, not always happy when it shuts Its ears against the plodder's ifs and buts, Hoping in one rash leap to snatch the event. The coursers of the sun, whose hoofs of flame Consume morn's misty threshold, are exact As bankers' clerks, and all this star-poised frame, One swerve allowed, were with convulsion rackt; This world were doomed, should Dulness fail, to tame Wit's feathered heels in the stern stocks of fact. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE COCK AND THE FOX, OR THE TALE OF THE NUN'S PRIEST by GEOFFREY CHAUCER THE GODODDIN: THE DEATH OF HOEL by ANEIRIN A SONNET. OF LOVE by PHILIP AYRES LAPLAND by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD AFTER CONSTRUING by ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON ON MY DEAR GRANDCHILD SIMON WHO DIED ... ONE MONTH AND ONE DAY OLD by ANNE BRADSTREET |