Verse

Famous quotes containing the word verse:

    There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet’s bombast!
    —Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)

    Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He’ll be as dumb as if his lips were stone.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    All ye poets of the age,
    All ye witlings of the stage,
    Learn your jingles to reform,
    Crop your numbers to conform.
    Let your little verses flow
    Gently, sweetly, row by row;
    Let the verse the subject fit,
    Little subject, little wit.
    Namby-Pamby is your guide,
    Albion’s joy, Hibernia’s pride.
    Henry Carey (1693?–1743)