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Poets: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

A poet not in love is out at sea; He must have a lay-figure.— BAILEY — Festus. Sc. Home.

Poets are all who love,-who feel great truths, And tell them.— BAILEY — Festus. Sc. Another and a

Better World. God's prophets of the Beautiful, These Poets were.— E. B. BROWNING — Vision of Poets. St. 98.

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.— E. B. BROWNING — The Dead Pan. St. 39.

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 Poets' Corner.— ROBERT BUCHANAN — Poet Andrew. L. 161.

And poets by their sufferings grow, - As if there were no more to do, To make a poet excellent, But only want and discontent.— BUTLER — Miscellaneous Thoughts.

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."— BYRON — Don Juan. Canto I. St. 42.

A Poet without Love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.— CARLYLE — Essays. Burns.

Most joyful let the Poet be; It is through him that all men see.— WILLIAM E. CHANNING — The Poet of

the Old and New Times. He koude songes make and wel endite.— CHAUCER — Canterbury Tales. Prologue. L. 95.

Who all in raptures their own works rehearse, And drawl out measur'd prose, which they call verse.— CHURCHILL — Independence. L. 295.

Poets by Death are conquer'd; but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.— ABRAHAM COWLEY — On the Praise of Poetry. Ode I. L. 13.

And spare the poet for his subject's sake.— COWPER — Charity. Last line.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains, Which only poets know.— COWPER — The Task. Bk. II. L. 285.

S. They best can judge a poet's worth, Who oft themselves have known The pangs of a poetic birth By labours of their own.— COWPER — To Dr. Darwin. St. 2.

I can no more believe old Homer blind, Than those who say the sun hath never shined; The age wherein he lived was dark, but he Could not want sight who taught the world to see.— SIR JOHN DENHAM — Progress of Learning. L. 61.

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.— SIR JOHN DENHAM — Cooper's Hill.

The poet must be alike polished by an intercourse with the world as with the studies of taste; one to whom labour is negligence, refinement a science, and art a nature.— ISAAC DISRAELI — Literary Character of

Men of Genius. Vers de Société. For that fine madness still he did retain, Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.— DRAYTON — To Henry Reynolds. Of Poets and Poesy. L. 109.

Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd; The next, in majesty; in both, the last. The force of nature could no further go; To make a third, she join'd the former two.— DRYDEN — Under Mr. Milton's Picture.

All men are poets at heart.— EMERSON — Literary Ethics.

C. Poets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, and the day's work.— EMERSON — Essays. Of Prudence.

"Give me a theme," the little poet cried, "And I will do my part," "'Tis not a theme you need," the world replied; "You need a heart."— R. W. GILDER — Wanted, a Theme.

Thou best-humour'd man with the worst-humour'd muse.— GOLDSMITH — Retaliation. Postscript.

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

His virtues formed the magic of his song. Inscription on the Tomb of Cowper. L. 10. See HAYLEY'S Life of Cowper. Vol. IV. P. 189. Lo! there he lies, our Patriarch Poet, dead! The solemn angel of eternal peace Has waved a wand of mystery o'er his head, Touched his strong heart, and bade his pulses cease.— PAUL H. HAYNE — To Bryant, Dead.

In his own verse the poet still we find, In his own page his memory lives enshrined, As in their amber sweets the smothered bees, - As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees.— O. W. HOLMES — Songs of Many Seasons.

Bryant's Seventieth Birthday. St. 17 and 18. We call those poets who are first to mark Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,- Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone.— O. W. HOLMES — Memorial Verses. Shakespeare. St. 4.

Where go the poet's lines?- Answer, ye evening tapers! Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls, Speak from your folded papers!— O. W. HOLMES — The Poet's Lot. St. 3.

Poets, the first instructors of mankind, Brought all things to their proper native use.— HORACE — Of the Art of Poetry. L. 449.

Wentworth Dillon's trans. Was ever poet so trusted before!— SAM'L JOHNSON — Boswell's Life of

Johnson. 1774. For a good poet's made, as well as born.— BEN JONSON — To the Memory of

Shakespeare. O 'tis a very sin For one so weak to venture his poor verse In such a place as this.— KEATS — Endymion. Bk. III. L. 965.

For his chaste Muse employed her heaventaught lyre None but the noblest passions to inspire, Not one immortal, one corrupted thought, One line, which dying he could wish to blot.— LORD LYTTLETON — Prologue to

Thomson's Coriolanus. All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not what is national in them, but what is universal.— LONGFELLOW — Kavanagh. Ch. XX.

For next to being a great poet is the power of understanding one.— LONGFELLOW — Hyperion. Bk. II.

S. Ch. III. For voices pursue him by day, And haunt him by night,- And he listens, and needs must obey, When the Angel says: "Write!"— LONGFELLOW — L'Envoi. The Poet and His Songs. St. 7.

Like the river, swift and clear, Flows his song through many a heart. и.— LONGFELLOW — Oliver Basselin. St. 11.

O ye dead Poets, who are living still Immortal in your verse, though life be fled, And ye, O living Poets, who are dead Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, With drops of anguish falling fast and red From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head, Ye were not glad your errand to fulfill?— LONGFELLOW — The Poets.

A terrible thing to be pestered with poets! But, alas, she is dumb, and the proverb holds good, She never will cry till she's out of the wood!— LOWELL — A Fable for Critics. L. 73.

The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below!— LOWELL — An Epistle to George William Curtis. L. 43. Postscript.

Poets alone are sure of immortality; they are the truest diviners of nature.— BULWER-LYTTON — Caxtoniana.

Essay XXVII. Poets are sultans, if they had their will : For every author would his brother kill.— ORRERY — Prologues (according to

Johnson). Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.— PLATO — The Republic. Bk. II. Sec. V.

And he whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad.— POPE — Prologue to Satires. L. 185.

Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, With whom my muse began, with whom shall end.— POPE — The Dunciad. Bk. I. L. 165.

Poets like painters, thus unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover every part, And hide with ornaments their want of art.— POPE — Essay on Criticism. L. 293.

The bard whom pilfer'd pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year.— POPE — Prologue to Satires. L. 179.

Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time.— POPE — Prologue to Satires. L. 13.

Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet, and they died.— POPE — Odes of Horace. Bk. IV.

Ode 9. While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.— POPE — The Dunciad. Bk. I. L. 93.

Call it not vain :-they do not err, Who say that, when the Poet dies, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies.— SCOTT — The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto V. St. 1.

Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs.— Shakespeare — Love's Labour's Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 346.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Midsummer-Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 12. Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong; They learn in suffering what they teach in song.— SHELLEY — Julian and Maddalo. L. 556.

Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.— SPENSER — Faerie Queene. Bk. IV. Canto II. St. 32.

I learnt life from the poets.— MADAME DE STAËL — Corinne. Bk. XVIII. Ch. V.

With no companion but the constant Muse, Who sought me when I needed her-ah, when Did I not need her, solitary else?— R. H. STODDARD — Proem. L. 87.

The Poet in his Art Must imitate the whole, and say the smallest part. S.— W. W. STORY — The Unexpressed.

Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.— SWIFT — On Poetry.

Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true. и.— SWIFT — TO Stella.

To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things of life.— SWINBURNE — Essays and Studies.

Victor Hugo. L'Année Terrible. The Poet's leaves are gathered one by one, In the slow process of the doubtful years.— BAYARD TAYLOR — The Poet's Journal.

Third Evening For now the Poet cannot die, Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry.— TENNYSON-TO — , after Reading a Life and Letters. St. 4.

The poet in a golden clime was born, With golden stars above; scorn, The love of love.— TENNYSON — The Poet.

A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems.— THOMSON — The Castle of Indolence. Canto I. St. 68.

Poets lose half the praise they should have got, Could it be known what they discreetly blot.— EDMUND WALLER — Miscellanies. Upon

the Earl of Roscommon's Translation of Horace, De Arte Poetica. L. 41. It was Homer who inspired the poet.— WAYLAND — The Iliad and the Bible.

In Spring the Poet is glad, And in Summer the Poet is gay; But in Autumn the Poet is sad, And has something sad to say.— BYRON FORCEYTHE WILLSON

Autumn Song. And, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains, -alas! too few.— WORDSWORTH — Miscellaneous Sonnets. Pt. II. Scorn not the Sonnet.

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares, - The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!— WORDSWORTH — Personal Talk.

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; Of him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough, along the mountain side.— WORDSWORTH — Resolution and Independence. St. 7.

That mighty orb of song, The divine Milton.— WORDSWORTH — The Excursion. Bk. I. L. 252.

Adhuc neminem cognovi poetam, qui sibi non optimus videretur. I have never yet known a poet who did not think himself super-excellent.— CICERO — Tusculanarum Disputationum.

V. 22. Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit. The man is either mad or he is making verses.— HORACE — Satiræ. II. 7. 117.

Disjecti membra poetæ. The scattered remnants of the poet. C.— HORACE — Satiræ. I. 4. 62.

Genus irritabile vatum. The irritable tribe of poets.— HORACE — Epistolæ. II. 2. 102.

Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non di, non concessere columnæ. Neither men, nor gods, nor booksellers' shelves permit ordinary poets to exist.— HORACE — Ars Poetica. 372.

Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseris, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice. If you rank me with the lyric poets, my exalted head shall strike the stars.— HORACE — Carmina. I. 1. 35.

Non scribit, cujus carmina nemo legit. He does not write whose verses no one reads.— MARTIAL — Epigrammata. III. 9. 2.

Carmina lætum Sunt opus et pacem mentis habere volunt. The poet's labors are a work of joy, and require peace of mind.— OVID — Tristium. V. 12. 4.

Neuere Poeten thun viel Wasser in die Tinte. Modern poets mix too much water with their ink.— GOETHE — Sprüche in Prosa. III.

Wer den Dichter will verstehen Muss in Dichters Lande gehen. Whoever would understand the poet Must go into the poet's country.— GOETHE — Noten auf West-O. Divans.