Stones from The Quarry | ||
MEN.
Some minds self-furnaced are; red-hot or coolThey fire or temper hearts with iron will:
Anvils on which hard Fortune hammereth still
Steel for Damascus blade or tempered tool,
To cut or work the way to place and rule.
Like fabled Arethusa, they fulfil
Their destined course, self-flow thro' good and ill;
To either fortune trained, in either school.
These are the few, who in their rude embrace
Force Fortune's favours, backward still to grant,
And all the more for this thrive in her grace.
While the dull herd she still doth stint and scant;
Who, shaped by accidents of time and place
To pattern, grow where and as she doth plant.
Stones from The Quarry | ||