Poetry Quotes — page 16

A verse may finde him,who a sermon flies And turns delight into a sacrifice.

Poetry must be new as foam, and as old as the rock.

A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.

To begin with, the basis of English poetry is rhythm, or, as some would prefer to call it, cadence. This rhythm is obtained by mingling stressed and unstressed syllables.

Poetry is a blossom of very delicate growth, it requires the maturing influence of vernal suns and every encouragement of culture and attention to bring it to its natural perfection.

Though science makes no use for poetry, poetry is enriched by science. Poetry “takes up” the scientific vision and re-expresses its truths, but always in forms which compel us to look beyond them to the total object which is telling its …

There have been many most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.

[N]o verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as Poetry, whatever other qualities it may possess.

Cheer'd up himself with ends of verse And sayings of philosophers.

Poets have imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter that rolled …

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

But what is man in his own proud esteem? Hear him, himself the poet and the theme; A monarch clothed with majesty and awe, His mind his kingdom and his will his law.

In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their …

A book of poems should have almost as many dedications as titles for the poet must always sing for some friend whether the friend knows it or not

Verse is a set of specially related sounds, repeated aloud.

God's most candid critics are those of his children whom he has made poets.

I have a faculty of memorizing any song or poem as I hear it, many, especially the old Scotch and Irish ballads I heard my grandmother sing when I was but a child.

Now, in our opinion, no author should be blamed for obscurity; nor should any pains be grudged in the effort to understand him, provided that he has done his best to be intelligible. Difficult thoughts are quite distinct from difficult …

Am I less man because I believe in a greater man? The barriers of flesh and bone fell down when the Poet of Galilee spoke to me; and I was held by a spirit, and was lifted to the heights, and in midair my wings gathered the song of …

Blank verse really deserving the name I believe to be impossible except to one or two eminent writers in a generation.

The wine is bottled poetry.

All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.

A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.

Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses. Poets are the policemen of language; they are always arresting …