Less Oft Peace In Shelley's Mind, Than

It Were As Wise To Cast A Violet Into A Crucible That You Might Discover The Formal Principle Of Its Color And Odor, As Seek To Transfuse From One Language Into Another The Creations Of A Poet. The Plant Must Spring Again From Its Seed, Or It Will Bear No Flower -- And This Is The Burthen Of The Curse Of Babel.

Know Ye What It Is To Be A Child? It Is To Have A Spirit Yet Streaming From The Waters Of Baptism; It Is To Believe In Love, To Believe In Loveliness, To Believe In Belief.

Poets, Not Otherwise Than Philosophers, Painters, Sculptors, And Musicians, Are, In One Sense, The Creators, And, In Another, The Creations, Of Their Age.

Unfathomable Sea! Whose Waves Are Years, Ocean Of Time, Whose Waters Of Deep Woe Are Brackish With The Salt Of Human Tears! Thou Shoreless Flood, Which In Thy Ebb And Flow Claspest The Limits Of Mortality! And Sick Of Prey, Yet Howling On For More, Vomitest Thy Wrecks On Its Inhospitable Shore, Treacherous In Calm, And Terrible In Storm, Who Shall Put Forth On Thee, Unfathomable Sea?

Better Than All Measures Of Delightful Sound, Better Than All Treasures That In Books Are Found, Thy Skill To Poet Were, Thou Scorner Of The Ground!