The Poetry of Real Life A New Edition, Much Enlarged and Improved. By Henry Ellison |
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EXCULPATION OF CHAUCER'S UNIONS OR APPOSITIONS OF MYTHOLOGICAL
AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS, SUCH AS THE ANACHRONISM
INVOLVED IN MARS BEING CALLED A KNIGHT,
AND VENUS A SAINT. |
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 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
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EXCULPATION OF CHAUCER'S UNIONS OR APPOSITIONS OF MYTHOLOGICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS, SUCH AS THE ANACHRONISM INVOLVED IN MARS BEING CALLED A KNIGHT, AND VENUS A SAINT.
The Poet lives not in mere time and space—From that far height where, poised upon his wings
Of Past and Future, he surveys all things,
And the Before and After doth embrace,
The little accidents of time and place,
To which the humbler spirit cleaves and clings,
Fade from his view, while, like the lark, he sings
Far out of sight of earth, and leave no trace!
Therefore, high-priest of Art, he oft unites,
In bonds of holy wedlock, things remote,
Apt marriages of high Truths to promote!
And these, which vulgar minds call oversights,
Are but the larger views, which, from those heights
Of Truth he takes, like God, who all at once doth note!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |