Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Poets
The busy shuttle comes and goes
Across the rhymes, and deftly weaves
A tissue out of autumn leaves,
With here a thistle, there a rose.
T. B. Aldrich.—Cloth of Gold, Proem.
Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.
Holmes.—The Professor at the Breakfast Table, Chap. X.
Sing! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven,
A silence of deep awe and wondering;
For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even
To hear a mortal angel sing.
Lowell.—The Poet.
The Poet in his art
Must imitate the whole, and say the smallest part.
William Wetmore Story.—The Unexpressed.
The Poet’s leaves are gathered one by one,
In the slow process of the doubtful years.
Bayard Taylor.—The Poet’s Journal, Third Evening.