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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

A Pedlar

Anonymous

Fine knacks for ladies! cheap, choice, brave, and new,
  Good pennyworths—but money cannot move:
I keep a fair but for the Fair to view—
  A beggar may be liberal of love.
Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true,
                    The heart is true.

Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again;
  My trifles come as treasures from my mind:
It is a precious jewel to be plain;
  Sometimes in shell the orient’st pearls we find:—
Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain!
                    Of me a grain!
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900 | Clarendon, 1919
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