Advice

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TO write as your sweet mother does
  Is all you wish to do.
Play, sing, and smile for others, Rose!
  Let others write for you.

Or mount again your Dartmoor grey,  
  And I will walk beside,
Until we reach that quiet bay
  Which only hears the tide.

Then wave at me your pencil, then
  At distance bid me stand,  
Before the cavern’d cliff, again
  The creature of your hand.

And bid me then go past the nook
  To sketch me less in size;
There are but few content to look  
  So little in your eyes.

Delight us with the gifts you have,
  And wish for none beyond:
To some be gay, to some be grave,
  To one (blest youth!) be fond.  

Pleasures there are how close to Pain,
  And better unpossest!
Let poetry’s too throbbing vein
  Lie quiet in your breast.

© Walter Savage Landor