Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich / [by Thomas Bailey Aldrich] [electronic text]

XX.
THE RARITY OF GENIUS.

WHILE yet my lip was breathing youth's first breath, Too young to feel the utmost of their spell I saw Medea and Phædra in Rachel: Later I saw the great Elizabeth. Rachel, Ristori— we shall taste of death Ere we meet spirits like these: in one age dwell Not many such; a century may tell Its hundred beads before it braid a wreath For two so queenly foreheads. If it take Æons to form a diamond, grain on grain, Æons to crystallize its fire and dew— By what slow processes must Nature make Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels? Great the gain If she spoil thousands making one or two.