Wisdom married to immortal verse.
There is in Poesy a decent pride,
Which well becomes her when she speaks to Prose,
Her younger sister.
POETS
(See also Poetry)
Poets are all who love,—who feel great truths,
And tell them.
A poet not in love is out at sea;
He must have a lay-figure.
Heureux- qui, dans ses vers, sait d'une voix legere
Passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au severe
Happy the poet who with ease can steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
Ah, poet-dreamer, within those walls
What triumphs shall be yours!
For all are happy and rich and great
In that City of By-and-by.
"There's nothing great
Nor small," has said a poet of our day,
Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve
And not be thrown out by the matin's bell.
O brave poets, keep back nothing;
Nor mix falsehood with the whole!
Look up Godward! speak the truth in
Worthy song from earnest soul!
Hold, in high poetic duty,
Truest Truth the fairest Beauty.
God's prophets of the Beautiful,
These Poets were.
One fine day,
Says Mister Mucklewraith to me, says he,
"So! you've a poet in your house," and smiled.
"A poet? God forbid, " I cried; and then
It all came out: how Andrew slyly sent
Verse to the paper; how they printed it
In Poet's Corner.
Poets alone are sure of immortality; they
are the truest diviners of nature.
And poets by their sufferings grow,—
As if there were no more to do,
To make a poet excellent,
But only want and discontent.
Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn
Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample;
But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one
Beginning with "Formosum Pastor Corydon."
A Poet without Love were a physical and
metaphysical impossibility.
Most joyful let the Poet be;
It is through him that all men see.
He koude songes make and wel endite.
Who all in raptures their own works rehearse,
And drawl out measur'd prose, which they call
verse.
Adhuc neminem cognovi poetam, qui sibi non
optimus videretur.
I have never yet known a poet who did not
think himself super-excellent.
Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit
Of poets triumphs over it.
And spare the poet for his subject's sake.
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,
And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard;
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.
Greece, sound thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's
name,
But England's Milton equals both in fame.
There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.
