Poems By William Bell Scott. Ballads, Studies from Nature, Sonnets, etc. Illustrated by Seventeen Etchings by the Author and L. Alma Tadema |
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182
III
Each medal hath its reverse; every dayIts cloud; each house its skeleton; so here,
Sum up this philosophic poet's year,
And we shall find within his mental way,
Few threads of vital poet-wisdom stray.
Instead; philanthropy with hand withheld,
A caution selfward turned, the muse compell'd
To chew the cud, to sift the sand and clay
Left by chance hill-winds, lest some grains of gold
Without assiduous sieve might there be lost.
A bald soul awkward with his lyre, both cold
And over-anxious, find we to our cost:
And this the moral of the whole; that man
Is great who simply doth the best he can.
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