Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume III/Genius

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

CHAPTER XVII.

A SECRETARYSHIP.

Alas! and must this be the fate
That all too often will await
The gifted hand, which shall awake
The poet's lute? and, for its sake,
All but its own sweet self resign,
Thou loved lute, to be only thine!
For what is genius, but deep feeling,
Wakening to glorious revealing?
And what is feeling, but to be
Alive to every misery?

Blanchard’s title is:

GENIUS

Adapted from the opening passages to The Golden Violet