Unjustly poets we asperse;
  Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,
  And all the fictions they pursue
  Do but insinuate what is true.
To Stella.  J. SWIFT.

  Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
  Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares,—­
  The Poets! who on earth have made us heirs
  Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
Personal Talk.  W. WORDSWORTH.

POETRY.

Wisdom married to immortal verse. The Excursion, Bk.  VII. w.  WORDSWORTH.

  Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
  Nature’s chief masterpiece is writing well;
  No writing lifts exalted man so high
  As sacred and soul-moving poesy.
Essay on Poetry.  SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

  Poetry is itself a thing of God;
  He made his prophets poets; and the more
  We feel of poesie do we become
  Like God in love and power.—­under-makers.
Festus:  Proem.  P.J.  BAILEY.

  Go boldly forth, my simple lay,
  Whose accents flow with artless ease,
  Like orient pearls at random strung.
A Persian Song of Hafiz.  SIR W. JONES.

One simile that solitary shines
In the dry desert of a thousand lines.
Imitations of Horace.  Epistle I. Bk.  II.  A. POPE.

Read, meditate, reflect, grow wise—­in vain;
Try every help, force fire from every spark;
Yet shall you ne’er the poet’s power attain,
If heaven ne’er stamped you with the muses’ mark.
The Poet.  A. HILL.

                     Jewels five-words long,
  That on the stretched forefinger of all time
  Sparkle forever.
The Princess, Canto II.  A. TENNYSON.

Choice word and measured phrase above the reach
Of ordinary men.
Resolution and Independence.  W. WORDSWORTH.

The varying verse, the full resounding line. 
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
Imitations of Horace, Bk.  II.  Epistle I.  A. POPE.

  Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
  Near the lark’s nest, or in their natural hour
  Have passed away; less happy than the one
  That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove
  The tender charm of poetry and love.
Poems in Summer of 1833, XXXVII.  W. WORDSWORTH. 
  Thanks untraced to lips unknown
  Shall greet me like the odors blown
  From unseen meadows newly mown,
  Or lilies floating in some pond,
  Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
  The traveller owns the grateful sense
  Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
  And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
  The benediction of the air.
Snow-Bound.  J.G.  WHITTIER.