eBooks Base 2000

This is Alfred Austin, in whose poem, _The Poet
and the Muse_, his genius explains to the newly betrothed poet:
How should you, poet, hope to sing?
The lute of love hath a single string.
Its note is sweet as the coo of the dove,
But 'tis only one note, and the note is love.
But when once you have paired and built your nest,
And can brood thereon with a settled breast,
You will sing once more, and your voice will stir
All hearts with the sweetness gained from her.
And perhaps even Alfred Austin's vote is canceled by his inconsistent
statement in his poem on Petrarch, _At Vaucluse_,
Let this to lowlier bards atone,
Whose unknown Laura is their own,
Possessing and possessed:
Of whom if sooth they do not sing,
'Tis that near her they fold their wing
To drop into her nest.
Let us not forget Shelley's expression of his need for his wife:
Ah, Mary dear, come to me soon;
I am not well when thou art far;
As twilight to the sphered moon,
As sunset to the evening star,
Thou, beloved, art to me.


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