We talk of genius as if it were a mere knack, and the poet could only express what other men conceived.  But in comparison with his task, the poet is the least talented of any; the writer of prose has more skill.  See what talent the smith has.  His material is pliant in his hands.  When the poet is most inspired, is stimulated by an aura which never even colors the afternoons of common men, then his talent is all gone, and he is no longer a poet.  The gods do not grant him any skill more than another.  They never put their gifts into his hands, but they encompass and sustain him with their breath.

To say that God has given a man many and great talents, frequently means that he has brought his heavens down within reach of his hands.

When the poetic frenzy seizes us, we run and scratch with our pen, intent only on worms, calling our mates around us, like the cock, and delighting in the dust we make, but do not detect where the jewel lies, which, perhaps, we have in the mean time cast to a distance, or quite covered up again.

The poet’s body even is not fed like other men’s, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods, and lives a divine life.  By the healthful and invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a serene old age.

Some poems are for holidays only.  They are polished and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such as toil gives to sour bread.  The breath with which the poet utters his verse must be that by which he lives.

Great prose, of equal elevation, commands our respect more than great verse, since it implies a more permanent and level height, a life more pervaded with the grandeur of the thought.  The poet often only makes an irruption, like a Parthian, and is off again, shooting while he retreats; but the prose writer has conquered like a Roman, and settled colonies.

The true poem is not that which the public read.  There is always a poem not printed on paper, coincident with the production of this, stereotyped in the poet’s life.  It is what he has become through his work.  Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist.  His true work will not stand in any prince’s gallery.

My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.

THE POET’S DELAY.

In vain I see the morning rise,
In vain observe the western blaze,
Who idly look to other skies,
Expecting life by other ways.

Amidst such boundless wealth without,
I only still am poor within,
The birds have sung their summer out,
But still my spring does not begin.

     Shall I then wait the autumn wind,
       Compelled to seek a milder day,
     And leave no curious nest behind,
       No woods still echoing to my lay?