SOURCE: “The Poetry,” in The Poetry and Aesthetics of Erasmus Darwin, Princeton University Press, 1936, pp. 93-147.

In the following essay, Logan discusses at length Darwin's poetic merits, considering first the poet's occasional verse and continuing on through Darwin's three major works of poetry: The Loves of the Plants, The Economy of Vegetation, and the posthumously published Temple of Nature.

We, therefore, pleas’d, extol thy song,           Though various, yet complete, Rich in embellishment, as strong,           And learn’d as it is sweet. 

William Cowper: TO DR DARWIN

 Let these, or such as these, with just applause, Restore the muse’s violated laws; But not in flimsy Darwin’s pompous chime, That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme, Whose gilded cymbals, more adorn’d than clear, The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear; In show the simple lyre could once surpass But now, worn down, appear in native brass; While...