While I touch the string, Wreathe my brows with laurel, For the tale I sing Has, for once, a moral. Common Sense, one night, Though not used to gambols, Went out by moonlight, With Genius, on his rambles. Common Sense went on, Many wise things saying; While the light that shone Soon set Genius straying. @3One@1 his eye ne'er raised From the path before him, T'@3other@1 idly gazed On each night-cloud o'er him. So they came, at last, To a shady river; Common Sense soon passed, Safe, as he doth ever; While the boy, whose look Was in Heaven that minute, Never saw the brook, But tumbled headlong in it. How the Wise One smiled, When safe o'er the torrent, At that youth, so wild, Dripping from the current! Sense went home to bed; Genius, left to shiver On the bank, 'tis said, Died of that cold river. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ARMAGEDDON by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON ELEGY: THE GHOST WHOSE LIPS WERE WARM; FOR GEOFFREY GORER by EDITH SITWELL NAPOLEON by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE THE QUAKER WIDOW by BAYARD TAYLOR IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 130 by ALFRED TENNYSON IN THE FOREST by ELINOR PETERSON ALLEN |