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Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise,Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

KEATS. On first looking into CHAPMAN'S HOMER. Cortez confused with Balboa.

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12

O ye dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and red
From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,
Ye were not glad your errand to fulfill?
LONGFELLOW-The Poets.

13

The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below! LOWELL-Epistle to George William Curtis. L. 43. Postscript.

14

A terrible thing to be pestered with poets!
But, alas, she is dumb, and the proverb holds
good,

She never will cry till she's out of the wood!
LOWELL-Fable for Critics. L. 73.

15

Sithe of our language he was the lodesterre. LYDGATE-The Falls of Princes. Referring to CHAUCER.

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For his chaste Muse employed her heaventaught lyre

None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line, which dying he could wish to blot.
LORD LYTTLETON-Prologue to Thomson's
Coriolanus.

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Poets are sultans, if they had their will:
For every author would his brother kill.
ORRERY-Prologues. (According to JOHN-
SON.)

20

Valeant mendacia vatum.

Good-bye to the lies of the poets.
OVID-Fasti. VI. 253.

21

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

PLATO-The Republic. Bk. II. Sec. V.

22

Tamen poetis mentiri licet.

Nevertheless it is allowed to poets to lie. (Poetical license.)

PLINY the Younger-Epistles. Bk. VI. 21.

23

While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep. POPE-Dunciad. Bk. I. L. 93.

24

Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, With whom my muse began, with whom shall end.

POPE-Dunciad. Bk. I. L. 165.

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