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.