MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

By Charles Sangster


 

THE LOFTY AND THE LOWLY.



There’s not a page of nature’s book
O’er which the thoughtful eye may look,
     But fills the mind with praise;
There’s not a plant that springs below, [Page 159]
E’en to the lowliest shrubs that grow

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     Beneath the sun’s bright rays,
But claims a more than passing share
Of admiration and of care.

With pride we view the stately oak,
Feel, when it meets the woodman’s stroke,

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     As for a friend cut down;
While the sweet daisy by its side,
In all its unassuming pride,
     By the same stroke o’erthrown—
How few lament its sudden fate—

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Our sympathy is with the great!

Thus does the world about us feel
For an ambitious statesman’s weal,
     Whereas a poor man’s woe
Is seldom either known or felt,

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Although he may, perhaps, have dealt—
     For aught strict worldlings know—
More good in his small circle than
His more important fellow-man.

I’ve seen a fawning parasite,

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The pliant tool of men of might,
     Attended to is grave
By troops of friends, who’d shared his gold,
Which made his virtues manifold—
     A good man of a knave;

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And I’ve seen men of sterling worth
Borne rudely to their parent earth, [Page 160]

Because, forsooth! they died so poor
That all their worth could not procure
     The friendship of the world:

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They were the daisies which had grown
Uncared for, and in part unknown,
     And those the oak trees, hurled
By some rude blast of fortune down,
But miss’d—for they had smelt renown! [Page 161]

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