Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words—health, peace, and competence.
Essay on Man, Epistle IV. A. POPE.
POET, THE.
We call those poets who are first to mark
Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,—
Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark,
While others only note that day is gone.
Shakespeare. O.W. HOLMES.
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.
Epistle to G.F. Mathews. J. KEATS.
Most joyful let the poet be;
It is through him that all men see.
The Poet of the Old and New Times. W.E. CHANNING.
God's prophets of the beautiful.
Vision of Poets. E.B. BROWNING.
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
Of Poets and Poesy: (Christopher Marlowe). M. DRAYTON.
But he, the bard of every age and clime,
Of genius fruitful, and of soul sublime,
Who, from the glowing mint of fancy, pours
No spurious metal, fused from common ores,
But gold, to matchless purity refin'd,
And stamp'd with all the godhead in his mind.
Juvenal. W. GIFFORD.
Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
Julian and Maddalo. P.B. SHELLEY.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
The Garden (Translated). A. MARVELL.