While yet my lip was breathing youth's first breath, <br />I all too young to know their deepest spell, <br />I saw Medea and Phædra in Rachel; <br />Later I saw the great Elizabeth. <br />Rachel, Ristori -- we shall speak with death <br />Ere we meet souls like these. In one age dwell <br />Not many such: a century shall tell <br />Its hundred beads before it braid a wreath <br />For two so queenly foreheads. If it take <br />Æons to form a diamond, grain on grain, <br />Æons to crystallize its fire and dew, <br />By what slow processes must Nature make <br />Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels? Great the gain <br />If she spoil millions making one or two.<br /><br />Thomas Bailey Aldrich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rarity-of-genius/
