Emma Lazarus

Here you will find thePoemCritic and Poet: an Epilogueof poet Emma Lazarus

Critic and Poet: an Epilogue

("Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned; this man is neither simple, sensuous, nor impassioned; therefore he is not a poet") No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define--what is a bird, To classify by rote and book, nor fail To mark its structure and to note the scale Whereon its song might possibly be heard. Thus far, no farther;--so he spake the word. When of a sudden,--hark, the nightingale! Oh deeper, higher than he could divine That all-unearthly, untaught strain! He saw The plain, brown warbler, unabashed. "Not mine" (He cried) "the error of this fatal flaw. No bird is this, it soars beyond my line, Were it a bird, 'twould answer to my law."