The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 1

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."