Perhaps the chief cause which has retarded the progress of poetry in America, is the want of that exclusive cultivation, which so noble a branch of literature would seem to require. Few here think of relying upon the exertion of poetic talent for a livelihood, and of making literature the profession of life. The bar or the pulpit claims the greater part of the scholar's existence, and poetry is made its pastime.
With useless endeavour Forever, forever, Is Sisyphus rolling His stone up the mountain!
Write on your doors the saying wise and old, "Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere - "Be bold; Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess Than the defect; better the more than less; Better like Hector in the field to die, Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
It is true, that it is not at all necessary to love many books, in order to love them much.
As to the pure mind all things are pure, so to the poetic mind all things are poetical.
However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.
The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts.
For next to being a great poet is the power of understanding one.
Welcome, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside.
Much must he toil who serves the Immortal Gods.
The Nile, forever new and old, Among the living and the dead, Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled.
Don't cross the bridge til you come to it.
Many have genius, but, wanting art, are forever dumb. The two must go together to form the great poet, painter, or sculptor.
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.
Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught In schools, some graduate of the field or street, Who shall become a master of art, An admiral sailing the high seas of thought Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet For lands not yet laid down in any chart.
The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.
The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.
Decide not rashly. The decision made Can never be recalled. The gods implore not, Plead not, solicit not; they only offer Choice and occasion, which once being passed Return no more. Dost thou accept the gift?
Torrent of light and river of air, Along whose bed the glimmering stars are seen, Like gold and silver sands in some ravine Where mountain streams have left their channels bare!
In the long run men hit only what they aim at.
'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.
A handful of red sand from the hot clime Of Arab deserts brought, Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, The minister of Thought.
Life is the gift of God, and is divine.
Be noble in every thought And in every deed!
Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word* Wait!
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