THE POETS.
Many years ago a Sonnet, by Leigh Hunt, characterising the poets, appeared in the Examiner. Can any of your readers inform me whether the following, which I quote from memory, is correct?
C. DAY.
"Were I to name, out of the times gone by,
The poets dearest to me, I should say,
Pulci for spirits, and a fine, free way,
Chaucer for manners, and a close, silent eye;
Spenser for luxury and sweet sylvan play,
Horace for chatting with from day to day;
Milton for classic taste and harp strung high,
Shakspeare for all—but most, society.
But which take with me could I take but one?
Shakspeare, as long as I was unoppress'd
With the world's weight, making sad thoughts intenser;
But did I wish out of the common sun
To lay a wounded heart in leafy rest,
And dream of things far off and healing—Spenser."