Algernon Swinburne

Our way is where God knows And Love knows where: We are in Love's hand to-day.

Stately, kindly, lordly friend Condescend Here to sit by me.

The more congenial page of some tenth-rate poeticule worn out with failure after failure and now squat in his hole like the tailless fox, he is curled up to snarl and whimper beneath the inaccessible vine of song.

The sweetest flowers in all the world- A baby's hands.

The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox.

The thorns he spares when the rose is taken; The rocks are left when he wastes the plain; The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken, These remain.

Those eyes the greenest of things blue The bluest of things grey.

Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes.

Is not Precedent indeed a King of men? A Word from the Psalmist.

It is long since Mr. Carlyle expressed his opinion that if any poet or other literary creature could really be "killed off by one critique" or many, the sooner he was so despatched the better; a sentiment in which I for one humbly but heartily concur.