Subject Continued

If Genius have its danger, grief, and pain, Which common sense escapes, yet who would change The powers, thro’ Nature and thro’ Art that range, To walk the bounded, dull, tho’ safer plain Of moderate intellect, where only reign Some faint perception of the Sweet,—the Strange, The Gay,—the Grand,—the Tender,—the Sublime, And all the varied stores of Fancy’s clime? Destructive shall we deem yon noon-tide blaze, If, transiently, the eye, o’erpower’d, resign Visual distinctness?—Shall we rather praise The moon’s pale light?—With owlish choice incline That common sense her lunar lamp should raise, Than that the solar fires of Genius shine?