"Epic poem,--ten thousand lines--revolution of July--composed it on the spot--Mars by day, Apollo by night,--bang the field-piece,... twang the lyre."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
God, who gave to him the lyre, Of all mortals the desire,... For all breathing men's behoof, Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;" Annexed a warning, poets say, To the bright premium,-- Ever, when twain together play, Shall the harp be dumb.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Traveling on foot very early one morning due east from here about twenty miles,... I heard at some distance a faint music in the a...ir like an Ãâ olian harp, which I immediately suspected to proceed from the cord of the telegraph vibrating in the just awakening morning wind, and applying my ear to one of the posts I was convinced that it was so. It was the telegraph harp singing its message through the country, its message sent not by men, but by gods. Perchance, like the statue of Memnon, it resounds only in the morning, when the first rays of the sun fall on it. It was like the first lyre or shell heard on the sea-shore,--that vibrating cord high in the air over the shores of earth. So have all things their higher and their lower uses. I heard a fairer news than the journals ever print. It told of things worthy to hear, and worthy of the electric fluid to carry the news of, not of the price of cotton and flour, but it hinted at the price of the world itself and of things which are priceless, of absolute truth and beauty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mackerel gulls were all the while flying over our heads and amid the breakers, sometimes two white ones pursuing a black one; quit...e at home in the storm, though they are as delicate organizations as sea-jellies and mosses; and we saw that they were adapted to their circumstances rather by their spirits than their bodies. Theirs must be an essentially wilder, that is, less human, nature, than that of larks and robins. Their note was like the sound of some vibrating metal and harmonized well with the scenery and roar of the surf, as if one had rudely touched the strings of the lyre, which ever lies on the shore; a ragged shred of ocean music tossed aloft on the spray.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office, and the bank; and, as a necessary part ...of the machinery, they kept a bell, a big gun, and a fire-engine, at convenient places; and the houses were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run the gauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him.... For the most part I escaped wonderfully from these dangers, either by proceeding at once boldly and without deliberation to the goal, as is recommended to those who run the gauntlet, or by keeping my thoughts on high things, like Orpheus, who, "loudly singing the praises of the gods to his lyre, drowned the voices of the Sirens, and kept out of danger." Sometimes I bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell my whereabouts, for I did not stand much about gracefulness, and never hesitated at a gap in a fence. I was even accustomed to make an irruption into some houses, where I was well entertained, and after learning the kernels and the very last sieveful of news,--what had subsided, the prospects of war and peace, and whether the world was likely to hold together much longer,--I was let out through the rear avenues, and so escaped to the woods again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the... intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The poetic process is not different from conjuration, enchantment, and other magical procedures. And the poet's attitude is very s...imilar to the magician's. Both utilize the principle of analogy; both act for utilitarian and immediate ends: they do not ask themselves what language or nature is, but use them for their own purposes. It is not difficult to add another trait: magicians and poets, unlike philosophers, technicians, and sages, draw their powers from themselves. To do their work it is not enough for them to possess a body of knowledge, as is the case with a physicist or a chauffeur. Every magical operation requires an inner force, achieved by a painful effort at purification.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »