Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Sentiment: IV. Thought: Poetry: Books

The Scholar

Sir Henry Taylor (1800–1886)

THIS life, and all that it contains, to him

Is but a tissue of illuminous dreams

Filled with book-wisdom, pictured thought and love

That on its own creations spends itself.

All things he understands, and nothing does.

Profusely eloquent in copious praise

Of action, he will talk to you as one

Whose wisdom lay in dealings and transactions;

Yet so much action as might tie his shoe

Cannot his will command; himself alone

By his own wisdom not a jot the gainer.

Of silence, and the hundred thousand things

’T is better not to mention, he will speak,

And still most wisely.