In the hands of genius, the driest stick becomes an Aaron’s rod, and buds and blossoms out in poetry. Is he a Burns? The sight of a mountain daisy unseals the fountains of his nature, and he embalms the “bonny gem” in the beauty of his spirit. Is he a Wordsworth? At his touch all […]
Poetry Quotes
Inside every man there is a poet who died young.
All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not what is national in them, but what is universal.
A poet is seldom hard up for advice. The worst part of it all is that sometimes the advice is coming from other poets, and they ought to know better.
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
As to the pure mind all things are pure, so to the poetic mind all things are poetical.
Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
If I thought that any poem of mine could have been written by anyone else, either a contemporary or a forerunner, I should suppress it with a blush; and I should do the same if I ever found I were imitating myself. Every poem should be new, unexpected, inimitable, and incapable of being parodied.
An artist that works in marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, but the man who molds his thoughts in verse has to employ the materials vulgarized by everybody’s use, and glorify them by his handling.
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
