_The Timepiece: The Task, Bk. II_. W. COWPER.
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.
_The Dunciad_. A. POPE.
Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
The pastime of a drowsy summer day.
But gather all thy powers,
And wreak them on the verse that thou wouldst weave.
_The Poet_. W.C. BRYANT.
From his chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought.
One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
_Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus_. LORD LYTTELTON.
I can no more believe old Homer blind,
Than those who say the sun hath never shined;
The age wherein he lived was dark, but he
Could not want sight who taught the world to see.
_Progress of Learning_. SIR J. DENHAM.
Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor;
Verse may seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
_Essay on Poetry_. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
_The Poet_. A. TENNYSON.
Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.
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