Poets

"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."

"And as to the poets, those who go astray follow them."

"A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep."

"The first task of any man who would be a poet is to know himself completely; he seeks his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it... The Poet makes himself into a seer by a long, involved and logical derangement of all the senses... The poet is really a thief of fire."

"Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young."

"He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life."

"For ne'er Was flattery lost on Poet's ear; A simple race! they waste their toil For the vain tribute of a smile."

"Call it not vain: — they do not err, Who say that, when the Poet dies, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies."

"A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to his conceptions, time and place and number are not. The grammatical forms which express the moods of time, and the difference of persons, and the distinction of place, are convertible with respect to the highest poetry without injuring it as poetry; and the choruses of Aeschylus, and the book of Job, and Dante’s “Paradise” would afford, more than any other writings, examples of this fact, . . . ."

"When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.—Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical."

"Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs."

"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."

"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."

"I think of poets over the ages sending their voices out into the sky, leaving quiet, indelible trails."

"Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden."

"When the poets rhyme in the summertime/You'll hear melodies in the words"

"Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet — whom Plato banned from his Republic — may rise up to save us all."

"As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the upper Paleolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times."

"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled."

"A poet looks at the world somewhat as a man looks at a woman."

"What is his [the poet's] function? Certain it is not to lead people out of the confusion in which they find themselves. nor is it, I think, to comfort them while they follow their readers to and fro. I think that his function is to make his imagination theirs and that he fulfills himself only as he sees his imagination become the light in the minds of others. His role, in short, is to help people to live their lives."

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

"It is worse than useless to deplore the irremediable; yet no man, probably, has failed to mourn the fate of mighty poets, whose dawning gave the promise of a glorious day, but who passed from earth while yet the light that shone in them was crescent."

"I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing."

"Any form of orthodoxy is just not part of a poet's province … A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry. The message of the New Testament is poetry. Christ was a poet, the New Testament is metaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights in approaching my whole vocation as priest and preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preaching Christianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. … My work as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginative truth."

"A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard becomes Who void of envy, guile and lust of gain, On virtue still and nature's pleasing themes Poured forth his unpremeditated strain."

"The poet… may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather."

"The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy."

"Our Poets make us laugh at Tragœdy, And with their Comoedies they make us cry."

"Poets lose half the praise they should have got, Could it be known what they discreetly blot."

"The poet is in the end probably more afraid of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message from the poem and throw the poem away than he is of the sentimentalist who says, "Oh, just let me enjoy the poem.""

"A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring"

"To have great poets, there must be great audiences, too."

"Many questions haven't been answered as yet. Our poets may be wrong; but what can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past."

"That mighty orb of song, The divine Milton."

"We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness."

"Poets are those who love truth and want justice."

"A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote."

"Heureux qui, dans ses vers, sait d'une voix légère Passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au sévère."

"Ah, poet-dreamer, within those walls What triumphs shall be yours! For all are happy and rich and great In that City of By-and-by."

"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."

"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 Poet's Corner."

"Poets alone are sure of immortality; they are the truest diviners of nature."

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

"A Poet without Love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility."

"Most joyful let the Poet be; It is through him that all men see."

"He koude songes make and wel endite."

"Who all in raptures their own works rehearse, And drawl out measur'd prose, which they call verse."

"Adhuc neminem cognovi poetam, qui sibi non optimus videretur."

"Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it."