POETS
Disjecti membra poetae.
The scattered remnants of the poet.
Horace—Satires. I. 4. 62.
Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit.
The man is either mad or he is making
verses.
Horace—Satires. II. 7. 117.
Was ever poet so trusted before!
| author = Samuel Johnson
| work = Boswell's Life of Johnson.
(1774)
| topic =
| page = 607
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>For a good poet's made, as well as born.
Ben Jonson—To the Memory of Shakespeare.
Trans, of Solus aut rex aut poeta non quotannis nascitur. Flohus—De Qualitaie Virus. Fragment. VIII. Poeta nascitur non
fit. The poet is born not made. Earliest
use in Camus Rhodiginus—Lectiones Antiawn. I. VII. Ch. IV. P. 225. (Ed.
1525)
5 O 'tis a very sin
For one so weak to venture his poor verse
In such a place as this.
KEA.TS—Endymion. Bk. III. L. 965.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browM Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till X heard Chapman speak out loud and bold :
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific,—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise,—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Keats. On first looking into Chapman's
Homer. Cortez confused with Balboa.
Je chantais comme l'oiseau gemit.
I was singing as a bird mourns.
Lamartine—Le Poete Mourant.
| seealso = (See also Tennyson)
| topic =
| page = 607
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>For next to being a great poet is the power of understanding one.
| author = Longfellow
| work = Hyperion. Bk. II. Ch. III.
All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not what is national in them, but what
is universal.
| author = Longfellow
| work = Kavanagh. Ch. XX.
For voices pursue him by day,
And haunt him by night,—
And he listens, and needs must obey,
When the Angel says: "Write!"
| author = Longfellow
| work = L'Envoi. The Poet and His
St. 7.
POETS
Like the river, swift and clear,
Flows his song through many a heart.
| author = Longfellow
| work = Oliver Basselin. St. 11.
O ye dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me u in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and red
From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,
Ye were not glad your errand to fulfill?
| author = Longfellow
| work = The Poets.
The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow
Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below!
| author = Lowell
| work = Epistle to George William Curtis. L.
43. Postscript.
li
A terrible thing to be pestered with poets!
But, alas, she is dumb, and the proverb holds
good,
She never will cry till she's out of the wood!
| author = Lowell
| work = Fable for Critics. L. 73.
Sithe of our language he was the lodesterre.
Ltdgate—The Falls of Princes. Referring to
Chaucer.
le
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Spenser)
For his chaste Muse employed her heaventaught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line, which dying he could wish to blot.
Lord Lyttleton—Prologue to Thomson's
Corifilanus.
17
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Swift)
Non scribit, cujus carmina nemo legit.
He does not write whose verses no one reads.
Martiaij—Epigrams. III. 9. 2.
You admire, Vacerra, only the poets of old
and praise only those who are dead. Pardon
me, I beseeeh you, Vacerra, if I think death too
high a price to pay for your praise.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. VIII. Ep. 49.
Poets are sultans, if they had their will:
For every author would his brother kill.
Orrery—Prologues. (According to Johnson.}})
| topic =
| page = 607
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Valeant mendacia vatum .
Good-bye to the lies of the poets.
Ovid—Fasti. VI. 253.
Poets utter great and wise things which they
do not themselves understand.
Plato—The Republic. Bk. II. Sec. V.
Tamen poetis mentiri licet.
Nevertheless it is allowed to poets to lie.
(Poetical license.)
Pliny the Younger—Epistles. Bk. VI. 21.
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.
Pom:—Dunciad.
| place = Bk. I. L. 93.
Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend,
With whom my muse began, with whom shall
end.
| author = Pope
| work = Dunciad.
| place = Bk. I. L. 165.
