"A POET! -- HE HATH PUT HIS HEART TO SCHOOL"

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by williamwordsworth

by williamwordsworth

                                    
                                              
Published 1842


                          [I was impelled to write this Sonnet by the disgusting frequency with which the word artistical, imported with other impertinences from theGermans, is employed by writers of the present day: for artistical let them substitute artificial, and the poetry written on this system, both at home and abroad, will be for the most part much better characterised.--I.F.]

                          

                          One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

                          

                           A Poet!--He hath put his heart to school, 

                          Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff 

                          Which Art hath lodged within his hand--must laugh
                          By precept only, and shed tears by rule.

                          Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff, 

                          And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,

                          In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool 

                          Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.[222] 

                          How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold? 

                          Because the lovely little flower is free 

 Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold; 

                          And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree 

                          Comes not by casting in a formal mould, 

                          But from its own divine vitality.

                          

                          [222] Compare A Poet's Epitaph (vol. ii. p. 75). --ED.