Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.
My unpremeditated verse.
Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before it was neither rhyme nor reason.
Rhyme nor reason.
An erit, qui velle recuset
Os populi meruisse? et cedro digna locutus
Linquere, nee scombros metuentia carmina nec thus.
Lives there the man with soul so dead as to disown the wish to merit the people's applause, and having uttered words worthy to be kept in cedar oil to latest times, to leave behind him rhymes that dread neither herrings nor frankincense.
Verba toga? sequeris, junctura callidus acri,
Ore teres modico, pallentes radere mores Doctos, et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo. Confined to common life thy numbers flow, And neither soar too high nor sink too low; There strength and ease in graceful union meet, Though polished, subtle, and though poignant, sweet; Yet powerful to abash the front of crime And crimson error's cheek with sportive rhyme.</poem>
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starv'd hackney sonneteer or me!
But let a lord once own the happy hues,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines.
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear!
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention.
The elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy.
I consider poetry very subordinate to moral and political science.
A poem round and perfect as a star.
I was promised on a time,
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season,
I received nor rhyme nor reason.
Spenser—Lines on His Promised Pension.
See Fuller's Worthies, by Nuttall. Vol.
H. P. 379.
| seealso = (See also More)
Jewels five-words-long,
That on the stretch 'd forefinger of all Time
Sparkle for ever.
| author = Tennyson
| work = Princess. Pt. II. L. 355.
| seealso = (See also Eastwick)
| topic = Poetry
| page = 604
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta,
Quale sopor fessis in gramine.
Thy verses are as pleasing to me, O divine
poet, as sleep is to the wearied on the soft turf.
Vergil—Eclogce. V. 45.
One merit of poetry few persons will deny:
it says more and in fewer words than prose.
Voltaire—A Philosophical Dictionary. Poets.
Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.
And so no force, however great,
Can strain a cord, however fine,
Into a horizontal line
That shall be absolutely straight.
Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time,
So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry:
Blot out the epic's stately rhyme,
But spare his Highland Mary!
Whittier—Burns. Last stanza.
The vision and the faculty divine;
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.
