Some till their ground, but let weeds choke their son

On priorities:

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George Herbert, The Temple

The facsimile is awesome but modernized text is more readable:


O England full of sin, but most of sloth!
Spit out thy phlegm, and fill thy breast with glory;
Thy Gentry bleats, as if thy native cloth
Transfus'd a sheepishnesse into thy story;
  Not that they all are so; but that the most
  Are gone to grass, and in the pasture lost .

This loss springs chiefly from our education:
Some till their ground, but let weeds choke their son;
Some mark a partridge, never their child's fashion;
Some ship them over, and the thing is done
  Study this art, make it thy great design;
  And if God's image move thee not, let thine.

Some great estates provide, but do not breed
A mast'ring mind; so both are lost thereby.
Or else they breed them tender, make them need
All that they leave:  this is flat poverty.
  For he that needs five thousand pound to live,
  Is full as poor as he that needs but five.

The way to make thy son rich, is to fill
His mind with rest before his trunk with riches:
For wealth without contentment, climbs a hill
To feel those tempests which fly over ditches.
  But if thy son can make ten pound his measure,
  Then all thou addest may be call'd his treasure.

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