“THE CRESCENT-MOON, THE STAR OF LOVE”
Published 1842
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”—Ed.
The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love,
Glories of evening, as ye there are seen
With but a span of sky between—
Speak one of you, my doubts remove,
Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen?
“A POET!—HE HATH PUT HIS HEART TO SCHOOL”
Published 1842
[I was impelled to write this Sonnet by the disgusting frequency with which the word artistical, imported with other impertinences from the Germans, is employed by writers of the present day: for artistical let them substitute artificial, and the poetry written on this system, both at home and abroad, will be for the most part much better characterised.—I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”—Ed.
A Poet!—He hath put his heart to school,
Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
Which Art hath lodged within his hand—must laugh
By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff, 5
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.[222]
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free 10
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
But from its own divine vitality.
[222] Compare A Poet’s Epitaph (vol. ii. p. 75).—Ed.