Arts & Sciences

A Poet's Thought

by Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall) 1787–1874

From A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895, ed. Edmund Clarence Stedman (1895)

Arts & Sciences

Tell me, what is a poet's thought?
Is it on the sudden born?
Is it from the starlight caught?
Is it by the tempest taught,
Or by whispering morn?

Was it cradled in the brain?
Chain'd awhile, or nurs'd in night?
Was it wrought with toil and pain?
Did it bloom and fade again,
Ere it burst to light?

No more question of its birth:
Rather love its better part!
'Tis a thing of sky and earth,
Gathering all its golden worth
From the Poet's heart.

MLA

Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall). “A Poet's Thought.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/procter_bw/22/.

Chicago

Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall). “A Poet's Thought.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/procter_bw/22/.

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