The Complaints IX

When in the mines of dark and silent thought Sometimes I delve and find strange fancies there, With heavy labour to the surface brought That lie and mock me in the brighter air, Poor ores from starved lodes of poverty, Unfit for working or to be refined, That in the darkness cheat the miner's eye, I turn away from that base cave, the mind. Yet had I but the power to crush the stone There are strange metals hid in flakes therein, Each flake a spark sole-hidden and alone, That only cunning toilsome chemists win. All this I know and yet my chemistry Fails and the pregnant treasures useless lie.