The Distinction

 

This Talent is a slip, or shoot,
Cut off the family tree;
To train with care and educate,
Which withers if let be.

 

But Genius is a seed that comes
From where no man doth know;
Though left uncared, aye, hindered too,
It cannot help but grow.

 

Talent's an outlet of Life's stream
Whose waters know no change;
But Genius bringeth in from far
New waters, sweet and strange.