 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere
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VII.
HUMILITY.
Those hills, so graceful, though to us not grand,
Are grand to children: shade-swept hill and dale
The same in beauty, on an ampler scale
With broader trees and shades, for them expand:
To them, the pebbles on the wet sea-sand
Are gems: to them each river brim and vale
Sends forth a thousand odours sweet and bland,
Too low for us to catch, too faint, too frail.
They see as far as we do: but their eye
Comparing all things with a humbler measure,
Exalts not less than multiplies their pleasure—
Ah that the moral world thus constantly
Might yield her gifts to our humility!
The smallest key unlocks the largest treasure.
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere
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