Genius is patience, labor and good sense. 
Steel and the mind grow bright by frequent use;
In rest they rust.  A goodly recompense
Comes from hard toil, but not from its abuse. 
The slave, the idler, are alike unblessed;
Aye, in loved labor only is there rest. 
But he will read and range and rhyme in vain
Who hath no dust of diamonds in his brain;
And untaught genius is a gem undressed. 
The life of man is short, but Art is long,
And labor is the lot of mortal man,
Ordained by God since human time began: 
Day follows day and brings its toil and song. 
Behind the western mountains sinks the moon,
The silver dawn steals in upon the dark,
Up from the dewy meadow wheels the lark
And trills his welcome to the rising sun,
And lo another day of labor is begun.

Poets are born, not made, some scribbler said,
And every rhymester thinks the saying true: 
Better unborn than wanting labor’s aid: 
Aye, all great poets—­all great men—­are made
Between the hammer and the anvil.  Few
Have the true metal, many have the fire. 
No slave or savage ever proved a bard;
Men have their bent, but labor its reward,
And untaught fingers cannot tune the lyre. 
The poet’s brain with spirit-vision teems;
The voice of nature warbles in his heart;
A sage, a seer, he moves from men apart,
And walks among the shadows of his dreams;
He sees God’s light that in all nature beams;
And when he touches with the hand of art
The song of nature welling from his heart,
And guides it forth in pure and limpid streams,
Truth sparkles in the song and like a diamond gleams.

Time and patience change the mulberry-leaf
To shining silk; the lapidary’s skill
Makes the rough diamond sparkle at his will,
And cuts a gem from quartz or coral-reef. 
Better a skillful cobbler at his last
Than unlearned poet twangling on the lyre;
Who sails on land and gallops on the blast,
And mounts the welkin on a braying ass,
Clattering a shattered cymbal bright with brass,
And slips his girth and tumbles in the mire. 
All poetry must be, if it be true,
Like the keen arrows of the—­Grecian god
Apollo, that caught fire as they flew. 
Ah, such was Byron’s, but alas he trod
Ofttimes among the brambles and the rue,
And sometimes dived full deep and brought up mud. 
But when he touched with tears, as only he
Could touch, the tender chords of sympathy,
His coldest critics warmed and marveled much,
And all old England’s heart throbbed to his thrilling touch.

Truth is the touchstone of all genius Art,
In poet, painter, sculptor, is the same: 
What cometh from the heart goes to the heart,
What comes from effort only is but tame. 
Nature the only perfect artist is: 
Who studies Nature may approach her skill;
Perfection hers, but never can be his,
Though her sweet voice his very marrow thrill;
The finest works of art are Nature’s shadows still.