A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

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

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

Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.

Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.

Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit
Of poets triumphs over it.

Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit
Of poets triumphs over it.

Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name,
But England's Milton equals both in fame.

Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name,
But England's Milton equals both in fame.

And spare the poet for his subject's sake.

And spare the poet for his subject's sake.

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."

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.