 | Three Hundred Sonnets |  |
45
WHEAT AND CHAFF.
My little learning fadeth fast away,And all the host of words and forms and rules
Bred in my teeming youth of books and schools
Dwindle to less and lighter; night and day
I dream of tasks undone, and lore forgot,
Seeming some sailor in the ‘ship of fools,’
Some debtor owing what he cannot pay,
Some conner of old themes remember'd not:
Despise such small oblivion; 'tis the lot
Of human life, amid its chance and change,
To learn, and then unlearn; to seek and find,
And then to lose familiars grown quite strange:
Store up, store wisdom's corn in heart and mind,
But fling the chaff on every winnowing wind!
| Three Hundred Sonnets | |