National Poetry Day 2015

…

But what strange art, what magic can dispose

The troubled mind to change its native woes?

Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see

Others more wretched, more undone than we?

This BOOKS can do;–nor this alone; they give

New views to life, and teach us how to live;

They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they 

chastise,

Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise:

Their aid they yield to all: they never shun

The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:

Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud,

They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;

Nor tell to various people various things,

But show to subjects what they show to kings.

…