The poet is a bird of strange moods. He descends from his lofty domain to tarry among us, singing; if we do not honor him he will unfold his wings and fly back to his dwelling place.

At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.

Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men.

The poet should seize the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal.

The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.

A verse may find him who a sermon flies, And turn delight into sacrifice.

Poetry is halfway between prose and music: it is sometimes like an intimate conversation, in words and phrases which need not be fully uttered, and sometimes like dancing and wordless music.

An artist who works in marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, but the man who moulds his thought in verse has to employ the materials vulgarized by everybody's use, and glorify them by his handling.

When you write in prose you say what you mean. When you write in rhyme you say what you must.