The Poetical Works of George Barlow In Ten [Eleven] Volumes |
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 | The Poetical Works of George Barlow |  |
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VIII.
AN IDEAL POET
Take Marlowe's splendid and impassioned heart,
Full of divine Elizabethan fire:
Take Shelley's tenderness, and Shelley's lyre,
And touch dim heights wherethrough strange starbeams dart:
Take Hugo's sovereign love and sense of Art,
And Musset's sweet insatiable desire,
And Byron's wrath at king and priest and liar—
These diverse gifts to one swift soul impart:—
Then over and above these several powers
Add Christ's own changeless spirit of love for men;
Mix Shelley's love for stars and birds and flowers
With Christ's unfathomed and immortal pain,—
With some such mingling of yet unmixed hours
Shall poets of the future sing and reign.
| The Poetical Works of George Barlow | |