I have frequently noticed in myself a tendency to a diffuse style; a disposition to push my metaphors too far, employing a multitude of words to heighten the patness of the image, and so making of it a conceit rather than a metaphor, a fault copiously illustrated in the poetry of Cowley, Waller, Donne, and others of that ilk.
Category Archive: March 3
Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse, And every conqueror creates a muse.
But I cannot bring myself to believe that I was intended for a musician, because it seems so small a business in comparison with other things which, it seems to me, I might do. Question here: ‘What is the province of music in the economy of the world?’
Could we forbear dispute, and practise love, We should agree as angels do above.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new.
To appreciate present conditions, collate them with those of antiquity.
Poets that lasting marble seek Must come in Latin or in Greek.
He puts his right hand lightly on the cup, I put my left, leaving the right free to transcribe, and away we go. We get, oh, 500 to 600 words an hour. Better than gasoline.
To love is to believe, to hope, to know; Tis an essay, a taste of Heaven below!
The seas are quiet when the winds give o’er; So calm are we when passions are no more!