Unknown Poets

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

From “The Excursion,” Book I.

O, MANY are the poets that are sown

By nature; men endowed with highest gifts,

The vision and the faculty divine;

Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse

(Which, in the docile season of their youth,

It was denied them to acquire, through lack

Of culture and the inspiring aid of books,

Or haply by a temper too severe,

Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame),

Nor having e’er, as life advanced, been led

By circumstance to take unto the height

The measure of themselves, these favored beings,

All but a scattered few, live out their time,

Husbanding that which they possess within,

And go to the grave, unthought of. Strongest minds

Are often those of whom the noisy world

Hears least.