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Simplicity

Robert Service

What I seek far yet seldom find
Is large simplicity of mind
                     In fellow men;
For I have sprouted from the sod,
Like Bobbie Burns, my earthly god,
                    —From plough to pen.

So I refuse my brain to vex
With problems prosy and complex,
                     Beyond my scope;
To me simplicity is peace,
So I persue it without cease,
                     And growing hope.

“The world is too much with us,” wrote
Wise Wordsworth, whom I love to quote,
                     When rhymes are coy;
And simple is the world I see,
With bud and bloom and brook and tree
                     To give me joy.

So blissfully I slip away
From brazen and dynamic day
                     To dingle cool . . .
Now tell me friend, if in your eyes,
By being simple I am wise,—
                     Or just a fool?
Online text © 1998-2009 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Carols of an Old Codger
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