Complaint

WHEN in the mines of dark and silent thought

Sometimes I delve and find strange fancies there,

With heavy labour to the surface brought

That lie and mock me in the brighter air,

Poor ores from starvèd lodes of poverty,

Unfit for working or to be refined,

That in the darkness cheat the miner’s eye,

I turn away from that base cave, the mind.

Yet had I but the power to crush the stone

There are strange metals hid in flakes therein,

Each flake a spark sole-hidden and alone,

That only cunning, toilsome chemists win.

All this I know, and yet my chemistry

Fails and the pregnant treasures useless lie.