Classic Poem

Prophets at home—I smile to note your wrongs;
How scantily praised at each ancestral hearth
Are ye, caress'd by million hearts and tongues,
And full of honours over half the earth:
O, petty jealousies and paltry strife!
The little minds that chronicle a birth
Stood once for teachers in the task of life;
But, as the child of genius grew apace,
Dismayed at his gigantic lineaments,
They feared to find his glory their disgrace,
His mind their master: so their worldly aim
Is still to vex him with discouragements,
To check the spring-tide budding of his fame,
And keep it down, to save themselves a name.