Benevolence the crupper mounts,
His arms, like _Sancho's_, from behind fold;
But it would seem, from all accounts,
He, like _Don Quixote's_ Squire, rides blindfold;
It may be to most glorious ends,
It may be to disastrous spillings.
Sense fain would know before it spends
Its hard-earned shillings.

If all were genuine that is Big,
If all were sound that's well intended,
_Quixote's_ wild jaunt and _Sancho's_ jig
Would very differently have ended.
Zeal boldly mounts the Magic Horse,
Charity on behind holds tightly,
Who will not wish them skill and force
To guide it rightly?

But Human Life's a complex maze,
And Nature's laws are most despotic.
Vice is not killed by kindly craze.
Nor suffering quelled by zeal Quixotic.
Big questions the Big Scheme beset.
Bid Pity _think_, and do not ask it
Too blindly all its eggs to get
In one huge basket.

Philanthropy, which facts will school,
Is not a theme for mocking merriment.
As MORLEY says, he is the fool