Parisian Paintings

 Along the old suburb, where hangs from the hovels

The shutters, shelter from secret lusts, When
the cruel sun strikes with redoubled strokes
On the city and the fields, on the roofs and the corn.
I am going to practice alone at my whimsical fencing, Sniffing
out in every corner the hazards of rhyme.
Stumbling over words as well as on cobblestones, Sometimes
bumping into verses long dreamed of.

This foster father, enemy of chlorosis, Awakens
in the fields worms as well as roses;
He causes worries to evaporate to heaven, And
fills brains and hives with honey.
It is he who rejuvenates the crutch-bearers
and makes them gay and gentle like maidens,
and commands the harvests to grow and ripen
in the immortal heart that always wants to blossom!
When, like a poet, he descends into the cities, He
ennobles the fate of the vilest things, And
introduces himself as a king, without noise and without servants, In
all the hospitals and in all the palaces.

Charles Baudelaire

                                                       The Flowers of Evil

A Poet!

 

A poet!—He hath put his heart to school,
Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
Which art hath lodged within his hand—must laugh
By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff,
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
But from its own divine vitality.

William Wordsworth

XVII Seconds

 XVII

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between his After and Before,
And strike up and strike off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
In a serene air purely. Antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour
From thence into their ears. God's will devotes
Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.
How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?
A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine
Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?
A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine?
A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning