University of Virginia Library

ADVICE TO SONNET-WRITERS

1
If thou canst mould thy work as Winter does

If thou canst mould thy work as Winter does,
Who helps, not hides, its beauty line on line,
Intricately maintaining his design
Through all the infinite intaglios
Pent on a narrow pane; if to a rose
A diamond thou canst cut—it may be thine
The sonnet's subtle secret to divine.
Chiefly if thou thy central thought dispose
So that through words by brevity made pale
They who look studiously shall see at last
Thy thought grow large—as in a misty zone
At sea through the grey gazed-on grows a mast
Obscurely carring noble heights of sail
Miles through the dim magnificent unknown;

2
If thou hast merely art mosaicwise

If thou hast merely art mosaicwise
To cramp just fourteen lines with rhymes just five;
If thou our Shakespeare's sonnet half despise
Because he greatly spurn'd so strict a gyve,
Because he royally allows rhymes seven,
Because that glorious couplet at the close
Flower'd like the spring, and starry like the heav'n
Seem to uphold a world in its repose;
If thou so let thy fingers count away
That all uncountable music of renown,
Those sonnets dark, yet full of fadeless day,
Little, yet living half the epics down—
Give thine own sonnets to the fire that lies
Ready for all correct stupidities.

3
A CRITIC OF POETRY

I heard a critic in a certain town
Lecture on Poetry. As butterflies,
Like sapphire spangles fallen from splendid skies,
On a stiff piece of cardboard are pinn'd down,
So dealt he with great verses, of renown
Them disenchanting, and their rich surprise.
He told the poets off by families,
Scarce one with beauty of his very own.
‘I hold song separate from the man himself;
I hold it for a delicate verbal trick.
Dainty work here!—this is the way he does it:
He puts me up a private colour-shelf;
Drawing a flower, he steals red tints to rose it.
Poetry's a pretty branch of rhetoric!’

4
THE CRITIC ANSWERED

Vexed by this voluble talker, I turn'd home,
Half-angry with myself for a half ‘yes.’
Hush! a lark sings. Uplifted littleness,
Airy Longinus of the azure dome,
Poet so born, who didst not so become!
Thou tellest me what yon critic did not guess—
Our songs are just ourselves, not more nor less,
High just as they are high the song starts from.
Voice that voyagest over vibrant seas,
Joy well content with thine own rich enjoyment,
Traveller up from daisies to the sun,
Glorious perfection in a small employment,
Tuned triumph, wing'd, transcendently at ease,
Thou and thy ditty are entirely one.