This is an often-seen case, I think. People have a concept in their head they want to see attached to a popular saying and when along comes something that kind

This is an often-seen case, I think. People have a concept in their head they want to see attached to a popular saying and when along comes something that kind of fits the bill, it gets used as the bearer of the message, regardless of its actual original intent. More mutated examples are proverbs like "the proof is in the pudding" and "the exception that proves the rule", which express concepts people want expressed and attached to easily recognizable sentences. Nobody really reads the poem, they just hear the words and the popular concept attached to them. You can probably find a lot more examples like that.