Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“ Not in his youth alone, but in age, may the heart of the poet
Bloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring.
III
Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the rhymes of our poet;
Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas! are the hands.
IV
Let us be grateful to writers for what is left in the inkstand;
When to leave off is an art only attained by the few. ”

“ In the twilight of age all things seem strange and phantasmal,
As between daylight and dark ghost-like the landscape appears.
XIV
Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse. ”

“ So by the art of the poet our common life is uplifted,
So, transfigured, the world floats in a luminous haze.
VII
Like a French poem is Life; being only perfect in structure
When with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are. ”