'Tis to create, and in creating live

A being more intense, that we endow
With form our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we image, even as I do now.

What am I? Nothing; but not so art thou,
Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth,
Invisible but gazing, as I glow

Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings'

dearth.

Byron: Childe Harold.

No real Poet ever wove in numbers

All his dream; but the diviner part,

Hidden from all the world, spake to him only
In the voiceless silence of his heart.

Adelaide A. Procter.

A poet could not sleep aright,

For his soul kept up too much light

Under his eyelids for the night.

Elizabeth B. Browning: A Vision of Poets.

He bore by day, he bore by night

That pressure of God's infinite

Upon his finite soul.

Elizabeth B. Browning: The Poet's Vow.

No sword

Of wrath her right arm whirl'd,

But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word

She shook the world.

Tennyson: The Poet.

God is the Perfect Poet,

Who in creation acts his own conceptions.

Browning: Paracelsus.

-The glories so transcendent

That around their memories cluster,

And, on all their steps attendant,
Make their darkened lives resplendent
With such gleams of inward luster! . . .

All the soul in rapt suspension,
All the quivering, palpitating
Chords of life in utmost tension,
With the fervor of invention,
With the rapture of creating!

Though to all there is not given

Strength for such sublime endeavor,
Thus to scale the walls of heaven,
And to leaven with fiery leaven
All the hearts of men forever;

Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted
Honor and believe the presage,
Hold aloft their torches lighted,
Gleaming through the realms benighted,
As they onward bear the message!

Longfellow: Prometheus, or The Poet's
Forethought.

Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling

And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo,
Through the corridors of Time.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds in summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start.

Longfellow: The Day is Done.

Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,
More full of love, because of him.
And day by day more holy grew

Each spot where he had trod,

Till after-poets only knew

Their first-born brother as a god.

Lowell: Shepherd of King Admetus.

Poverty; see Charity and Wealth.

Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood;
Yet many things, impossible to thought,

Have been by need to full perfection brought.

Dryden: Wife of Bath.

If we from wealth to poverty descend,

Want gives to know the flatterer from the friend.

Dryden: Wife of Bath.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed,

Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

Dr. Johnson: London.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unfold;
Chill penury repress'd their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Gray: Elegy.

The poor alone are outcasts; they who risked
All they possessed for liberty, and lost;
And wander through the world without a friend,
Sick, comfortless, distressed, unknown, uncared for.
Longfellow: Michael Angelo.

Power; see Action and Ambition.

What can power give more than food and drink,
To live at ease, and not be bound to think?

Dryden: Medal.

Calm and serene he drives the furious blast,
And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
Addison: Campaign.

He hath no power who hath not power to use.

The good old rule

Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

Bailey: Festus.

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can.

Wordsworth: Rob Roy's Grave.

Power, like a desolating pestilence,

Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,

Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,

Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame,

A mechanized automaton.

Praise; see Applause and Fame.

Shelley: Queen Mab.

Praising what is lost,

Makes the remembrance dear.

Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well.

Who would ever care to do brave deed,
Or strive in virtue others to excel,

If none should yield him his deserved meed
Due praise, that is the spur of doing well?
For if good were not praised more than ill,
None would choose goodness of his own free will.
Spenser: Tears of the Muses.

The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns, more or less, and glows, in ev'ry heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.

Young: Love of Fame.

'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;

Yet, now and then, your men of wit

Will condescend to take a bit.

Swift: Cadenus and Vanessa.

Minds,

By nature great, are conscious of their greatness,
And hold it mean to borrow aught from flattery.

Rowe.