30.04.2007, 11:25
THE RARITY OF GENIUS.
WHILE yet my lip was breathing youth's first breath,
Too young to feel the utmost of their spell
I saw Medea and Phædra in Rachel:
Later I saw the great Elizabeth.
Rachel, Ristori— we shall taste of death
Ere we meet spirits like these: in one age dwell
Not many such; a century may tell
Its hundred beads before it braid a wreath
For two so queenly foreheads. If it take
Æons to form a diamond, grain on grain,
Æons to crystallize its fire and dew—
By what slow processes must Nature make
Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels? Great the gain
If she spoil thousands making one or two.
WHILE yet my lip was breathing youth's first breath,
Too young to feel the utmost of their spell
I saw Medea and Phædra in Rachel:
Later I saw the great Elizabeth.
Rachel, Ristori— we shall taste of death
Ere we meet spirits like these: in one age dwell
Not many such; a century may tell
Its hundred beads before it braid a wreath
For two so queenly foreheads. If it take
Æons to form a diamond, grain on grain,
Æons to crystallize its fire and dew—
By what slow processes must Nature make
Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels? Great the gain
If she spoil thousands making one or two.