The Mortal Sickness Of A Mind Too

To Be A Textual Critic Requires Aptitude For Thinking And Willingness To Think; And Though It Also Requires Other Things, Those Things Are Supplements And Cannot Be Substitutes. Knowledge Is Good, Method Is Good, But One Thing Beyond All Others Is Necessary; And That Is To Have A Head, Not A Pumpkin, On Your Shoulders And Brains, Not Pudding, In Your Head.

Why, If 'tis Dancing You Would Be, There's Brisker Pipes Than Poetry. Say, For What Were Hop-yards Meant, Or Why Was Burton Built On Trent? Oh Many A Peer Of England Brews Livelier Liquor Than The Muse, And Malt Does More Than Milton Can To Justify God's Ways To Man. Ale, Man, Ale's The Stuff To Drink For Fellows Whom It Hurts To Think: Look Into The Pewter Pot To See The World As The World's Not.

All Knowledge Is Precious Whether Or Not It Serves The Slightest Human Use.

'tis Spring; Come Out To Ramble The Hilly Brakes Around, For Under Thorn And Bramble About The Hollow Ground The Primroses Are Found. And There's The Windflower Chilly With All The Winds At Play, And There's The Lenten Lily That Has Not Long To Stay And Dies On Easter Day.

Tell Me Not Here, It Needs Not Saying, What Tune The Enchantress Plays In Aftermaths Of Soft September Or Under Blanching Mays, For She And I Were Long Acquainted And I Knew All Her Ways.