Sonnet 26 (Miscellaneous Sonnets)

Accuse not gracious Nature of neglect.
Nor doubt the wise intent of Providence.
Because a human thing not quick of sense.
With scarce a twinkling spark of intellect,
With much of body's, more of mind's defect,
Hath hobbled upon earth for eighty years ;
And now, unconscious of the hopes and fears
That the past life of wiser men dissect.
Is dozing deathward. Deep and dark immured
The corn-seed in the dead-throng'd catacomb,
From light shut out, was yet from blight secured
And Turk and Mam'luke, in oblivious tomb :
And thus, for eighty years, good man, in thee
The seed has slept, sepulchred in simplicity.