Sure there are poets which did never dream
Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream
Of Helicon; read more

Sure there are poets which did never dream
Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream
Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose
Those made not poets, but the poets those.

Singing and rejoicing,
As aye since time began,
The dying earth's last poet
Shall read more

Singing and rejoicing,
As aye since time began,
The dying earth's last poet
Shall be the earth's last man.

Poets are all who love,--who feel great truths,
And tell them.

Poets are all who love,--who feel great truths,
And tell them.

As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned read more

As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the Prefect

The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible.

The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible.

The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the read more

The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts.

A poet not in love is out at sea;
He must have a lay-figure.

A poet not in love is out at sea;
He must have a lay-figure.

Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus read more

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
Being with "Formosum Pastor Corydon."

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If read more

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.