Test of the poet is knowledge of love,
For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove;
Never was poet, of late or of yore,
Who was not tremulous with love-lore.
Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter...the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing.
I have never injured anybody with a mordant poem; my
verse contains charges against nobody. Ingenuous, I have
shunned wit steeped in venom--not a letter of mine is dipped
in poisonous jest.