"Behold great Whitman, whose licentious line Delights the rake, and warms the souls of swine; Whose fever'd fancy shuns the measur'd pace, And copies Ovid's filth without his grace. In his rough brain a genius might have grown, Had he not sought to play the brute alone; But void of shame, he let his wit run wild, And liv'd and wrote as Adam's bestial child. Averse to culture, strange to humankind, He never knew the pleasures of the mind. Scorning the pure, the delicate, the clean, His joys were sordid, and his morals mean. Thro' his gross thoughts a native vigour ran, From which he deem'd himself the perfect man: But want of decency his rank decreas'd, And sunk him to the level of the beast. Would that his Muse had dy'd before her birth, Nor spread such foul corruption o'er the earth."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesPoets from the United StatesJournalists from the United States19th-century poets from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
H. P. Lovecraft, in an "Essay on Modern Poets" this was published as a "Fragment on Whitman” in The Ancient Track (2001) edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 192
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Walt Whitman
1819 – 1892
US-amerikanischer Dichter
91 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Walt Whitman →
Related Quotes
"...the rights of them the others are down upon, Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, Fog in the air, be…"
"In our sun-down perambulations, of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of you…"
"The paths to the house I seek to make, But leave to those to come the house itself."
"It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them. And perhaps it is the case that the gre…"
"I find I'm a good deal more of a socialist than I thought I was: maybe not technically, politically, so, but intrinsi…"
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, …"
"Now obey thy cherished secret wish, Embrace thy friends—leave all in order; To port and hawser's tie no more returnin…"
"Society waits unformed and is between things ended and things begun."
"Whitman is a "bad influence"; that is, he cannot be imitated."
"Talk not so much, then, young artist, of the great old masters, who but painted and chisell'd. Study not only their p…"