Yet wish I those whom I for friends have known,
To sing their thoughts to no ears but their own.
Why should the man, whose wit ne'r had a stain,
Upon the publick Stage present his [vein],
And make a thousand men in judgment sit,

To call in question his undoubted wit,

Scarce two of which can understand the laws
Which they should judge by, nor the parties cause?

-Francis Beaumont

From "Pope's Works."

I believe no mortal ever lived in such indolence and inactivity of body, though my mind be perpetually rambling-it no more knows whither than poor Adrian's did when he lay a-dying. Like a witch, whose carcass lies motionless on the floor, while she keeps her airy sabbaths, and enjoys a thousand imaginary entertainments abroad, in this world and in others, I seem to sleep in the midst of the hurry, even as you would swear a top stands still, when it is in the whirl of its giddy motion. It is no figure, but a serious truth I tell thee, when I say that my days and nights are so much alike, so equally insensible of any moving power but fancy, that I have sometimes spoke of things in our family as truths and real accidents, which I only dreamt of; and again, when some things that actually happened came into my head, have thought, till I enquired, that I had only dreamed of them.

-Alexander Pope

Pope to Wycherley.

For as, when madmen are found incurable, wise men give them their way, and please them as well as they can, so, when those incorrigible things, poets, are once irrecoverably bemused, the best both to quiet them, and secure yourself from the effects of their frenzy, is to feed their vanity which, indeed, for the most part, is all that is fed in a poet.

:

-Alexander Pope

From "Table Talk."

A. Such lofty strains embellish what you teach-
Mean you to prophesy, or but to preach?

B. I know the mind that feels indeed the fire
The Muse imparts and can command the lyre,
Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal.
Whate'er the theme, that others never feel.
If human woes her soft attention claim,
A tender sympathy pervades the frame,
She pours a sensibility divine

Along the nerve of every feeling line.

But if a deed not tamely to be borne

Fire indignation and a sense of scorn,

The strings are swept with such a power, so loud, The storm of music shakes th' astonsh'd crowd

So, when remote futurity is brought

Before the keen inquiry of her thought,

A terrible sagacity informs

The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms;

He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers!

And, arm'd with strength surpassing human powers, Seizes events as yet unknown to man,

And darts his soul into the dawning plan.

Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name

Of prophet and of poet was the same;

Hence British poets, too, the priesthood shared,
And every hallowed Druid was a bard.

-William Cowper

Poetic excitement, when accompanied by protracted labour in composition, has throughout my life brought on more or less bodily derangement. Nevertheless, I am, at the close of my seventy-third year, in what may be called excellent health; so that intellectual labour is not necessarily unfavourable to longevity. But perhaps I ought here to add that mine has been generally carried on out of doors. . .

A cheerful life is what the Muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.

-William Wordsworth

From "The Prelude."

And now it would content me to yield up
Those lofty hopes awhile, for present gifts
Of humbler industry. But, oh, dear Friend!
The Poet, gentle creature as he is,

Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times;
His fits when he is neither sick nor well,

Though no distress be near him but his own
Unmanageable thoughts: his mind, best pleased
While she as duteous as the mother dove

Sits brooding, lives not always to that end,
But like the innocent bird, hath goadings on
That drive her as in trouble through the groves;
With me is now such passion, to be blamed
No otherwise than as it lasts too long.

-William Wordsworth

From "Letters and Journals of Byron," by Moore. To his publisher.

I have not done a stitch of poetry since I left Switzerland, and have not at present the estro upon me. The truth is, that you are afraid of having a Fourth Canto before September, and of another copyright, but I have at present no thoughts of resuming that poem, nor of beginning any other. If I write, I think of trying prose, but I dread introducing living people, or applications which might be made to living people. Perhaps one day or other I may attempt some work of fancy in prose descriptive of Italian manners and of human passions; but, at present, I am preoccupied. As for poesy, mine is the dream of the sleeping passions; when they are awake, I cannot speak their language, only in their somnambulism, and just now they are not dormant.

-Lord Byron

From "Works of Thomas Gray." To Richard West.

. . . Low spirits are my true and faithful companions; they get up with me, go to bed with me, make journeys and return as I do; nay, and pay visits, and will even affect to be jocose, and force a feeble laugh with me; but most commonly we sit alone, . . . the prettiest insipid company in the world. However, when you come, I believe they must undergo the fate of all humble companions, and be discarded. Would I could turn them to the same use that you have done, and make an Apollo of them. If they could write such verses with me, not hartshorn, nor spirit of amber, nor all that furnishes the closet of an apothecary's widow, should persuade me to part with them. . . -Thomas Gray

From "Letters of George Meredith." Jessop.

To the Rev. Augustus

It is true that I have fallen from what I once hoped to do. The fault is hardly mine. Do you know Vexation, the slayer? There is very little poetry to be done when one is severely and incessantly harassed. My nerves have given way under it, and it is only by great care and attention to the directions of my doctor that I can work at all. I have now more leisure and somewhat better health, and the result is, that I have gone back partially to my old mistress.

-George Meredith