Verse

Famous quotes containing the word verse:

    Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
    And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
    Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
    And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
    And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
    Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise,
    My person degrade & my temper chastise;
    And the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame;
    And my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.
    William Blake (1757–1827)

    There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet’s bombast!
    —Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)