< Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu
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CRITIC AND POET.

CRITIC AND POET.

AN APOLOGUE.

("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, ’t would answer to my law."

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