Who thinks in eighteen hundred eighty-four
To find a thought or rhyme not used before.
And yet I must not speak of “waters blue,”
Of “sunny skies,” and “eyes of heavenly hue,”
Nor use some old stock metaphor at need
Because, forsooth, pedantic fools may read,
The same in every language,—Sanscrit, Greek,
Hebrew and Latin, Dutch and Arabic.
Great bards of yore, and they of yesterday,
Before whose sun my rushlight pales away,