Poet, beware! The sonnet's primrose path Is all too tempting for thy feet to tread. Not on this journey shalt thou earn thy bread, Because the sated reader roars in wrath: 'Little indeed to say the singer hath, And little sense in all that he hath said; Such rhymes are lightly writ but hardly read, And naught but stubble is his aftermath.' Then shall he cast that bonny book of thine Where the extreme waste-paper basket gapes; There shall thy futile fancies peak and pine, With other minor poets-pallid shapes, Who come a long way short of the divine, Tormented souls of imitative apes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FARM CHILD'S LULLABY by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by ROBERT FROST THE SONNET by RICHARD WATSON GILDER DITTY IN IMITATION OF THE SPANISH: ENTRE TANTO QUE L'AVRIL by EDWARD HERBERT A SONNET by JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN |