Poetry cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except […]
Poetry Quotes
Souls of poets dead and gone What Elysium have thee known? Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern.
A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity.
The occasional poet is circumscribed by the narrowness of his subject. Whatever can happen to man has happened so often, that little remains for fancy or invention. We have been all born; we have most of us been married; and so many have died before us, that our deaths can supply but few materials for […]
I never wrote one single Line of Poetry with the least Shadow of public thought.
Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men’s souls.
The characteristick quality of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantick loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required, but it is his peculiar power to astonish.
When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
Poetry is not made out of the understanding. The question of common sense is always, “What is it good for?” A question would abolish a rose, and be triumphantly answered by the cabbage.
Knowledge of the subject is to the poet what durable materials are to the architect.
