450

POET-POETRY.

2. I'd rather be a kitten, and cry, mew,

3.

Than one of those same metre ballad-mongers.

-Who first found out that curse,

T" imprison and confine his thoughts in verse,
To hang so dull a clog upon the wit,

And make his reason to his rhyme submit.

SHAKSPEARE.

4. As wine, that with its own weight runs, is best,
And counted much more noble than the rest,
So is the Poetry, whose generous strains
Flow without servile study, art, or pains.

5. But those, that write in rhyme, still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think's sufficient at one time.

BUTLER.

BUTLER.

BUTLER'S Hudibras.

6. And rhyme the rudder is of verses,
With which, like ships, they steer their courses.

BUTLER'S Hudibras.

7. Read, meditate, reflect, grow wise in vain ;

Try every help, force fire from every spark;

Yet shall you ne'er the poet's power attain,

If heaven ne'er stamp'd you with the muses' mark.

8. Then, rising with Aurora's light,

The muse invok'd, sit down to write.
Blot out, correct, insert, refine,

Enlarge, diminish, interline;

Be mindful, when invention fails,

To scratch your head, and bite your nails..

AARON HILL.

DEAN SWIFT.

9. Thou source of all my bliss, of all my woe,
Thou found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so!

GOLDSMITH.

10. A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
POPE'S Essay on Criticism.

11. Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art - the art to blot.

POPE'S Essay on Criticism.

12. Married to immortal verse,
Such as meeting souls may pierce,
In notes of many a winding bout,
In linked sweetness long drawn out.

13. There is a pleasure in poetic pains, That none but poets know.

14.

And I have felt

A passion that disturb'd me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interpos'd,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting sun,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and on the mind of man.

15. 'Tis long disputed, whether poets claim

From art or nature their best right to fame;
But art, if not enrich'd by nature's vein,
And a rude genius of uncultur'd strain,

MILTON.

WORDSWORTH.

WORDSWORTH.

Are useless both; but when in friendship join'd,
A mutual succour in each other find.

FRANCIS' Horace.

16. 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.

GIFFORD'S Juvenal.

452

17.

POET-POETRY.

A theme well fitted to inspire

The purest frenzy of poetic fire.

JOEL BARLOW.

18. But which deserves the laurel, rhyme or blank?
Which holds on Helicon the highest rank?—
Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute
This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.

BYRON'S Imitations.

19. Oh! how I hate the nerveless, frigid song,
The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng;
Whose labour'd lines in chilling numbers flow,
To paint a pang the author ne'er can know!

20. Many are poets who have never penn'd Their inspiration.

21. Not a stone on their turf, or a
But they live by the verse that immortally saves.

BYRON.

BYRON.

line on their graves,

BYRON'S Siege of Corinth.

22. In liquid lines, mellifluously bland.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

23. To whom the lyre and laurels have been given,
With all the trophies of triumphant song-
He won them well, and may he wear them long!

BYRON'S Don Juan.

24. Over the harp, from earliest years belov'd,
He threw his fingers hurriedly, and tones
Of melancholy beauty died away,
Upon its strings of sweetness.

25. He touch'd his harp, and nations heard, entranc'd;
As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flow'd,
And oped new feelings in the human heart.

POLLOK'S Course of Time.

26. 'Tis not the chime and flow of words, that move
In measur'd file, and metrical array :
"T is not the union of returning sounds,
Nor all the pleasing artifice of rhyme,
And quantity, and accent.

J. G. PERCIVAL.

27. He pour'd his heart's full affluence in song, And good and bad went reconcil'd together.

DAWES' Geraldine.

28. As nightingales do upon glow-worms feed,
So poets live upon the living light
Of nature and of beauty,

Feeding their souls upon the soft, and sweet,
And delicate imaginings of song.

BAILEY'S Festus.

29. Immortal bard! thy name shall be enroll'd
Among the first to claim the poet's crown;
Thy fame the archives of the world unfold,
And future times shall tell of thy renown.

SHERBURNE, on Byron.

30. Where sense with sound, and ease with weight, combine

In the pure silver of Pope's ringing line;

Or where the pulse of man beats loud and strong,
In the frank flow of Dryden's lusty song.

31. But it was love that taught me rhyme,
And it was thou that taught me love;
And if I in this idle chime

Of words a useless sluggard prove,
It was thine eyes the habit nurs'd,
And in their light I learn'd it first.

The New Timon.

32. And, long as poetry shall charm mankind, His flowing numbers will admirers find.

C. F. HOFFMAN.

J. T. WATSON.

454

POETRY-POLITENESS-POLITICS.

33. Whose song gush'd from his heart
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start.

H. W. LONGfellow.

POETRY. (See POET.)

POLITENESS. (See ETIQUETTE.)

POLITICS.

1. A politician, Proteus-like, must alter
His face and habit; and, like water, seem
Of the same colour that the vessel is
That doth contain it, varying his form,
With the chameleon, at each object's change.

2. Dull rogues affect the politician's part,
And learn to nod, and smile, and shrug with art;
Who nothing has to lose, the war bewails;
And he, who nothing pays, at taxes rails.

3.

Your politicians

Have evermore a taint of vanity;
As hasty still to show and boast a plot,

As they are greedy to contrive it.

MASON.

CONGREVE.

SIR W. DAVENANT.

4. All would be deem'd, e'en from the cradle, fit

To rule in politics, as well as wit;

The grave, the gay, the fopling, and the dunce,
Start up (God bless us !) statesmen all at once!

CHURCHILL.