An idle story with an idle moral! Why do I tell it, at the risk of quarrel With nobler themes? The world, alas! is so, And who would gather truth must bend him low, Nor fear to soil his knees with graveyard ground, If haply there some flower of truth be found. For human nature is an earthy fruit, Mired at the stem and fleshy at the root, And thrives with folly's mixon best o'erlaid, Nor less divinely so, when all is said. Brave lives are lived, and worthy deeds are done Each virtuous day, 'neath the all-pitying sun; But these are not the most, perhaps not even The surest road to our soul's modern heaven. The best of us are creatures of God's chance (Call it His grace), which works deliveranc…
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