What is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only? - John Millington Synge

In the middle classes the gifted son of a family is always the poorest—usually a writer or artist with no sense for speculation—and in a family of peasants, where the average comfort is just over penury, the gifted son sinks also, and is soon a tramp on the roadside.

I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds,
The gray and wintry sides of many glens,
And did but half remember human words,
In converse with the mountains, moors, and fens.

I asked if I got sick and died, would you
With my black funeral go walking too,
If you’d stand close to hear them talk or pray
While I’m let down in that steep bank of clay.