Lord Byron on Poets
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“For a man to become a poet (witness Petrarch and Dante), he must be in love, or miserable.”
“A great poet belongs to no country ; his works are public property, and his Memoirs the inheritance of the public.”
“Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him, Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample, Catullus scarcely has a decent poem, I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example, Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample; But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one Beginning with "Formosum Pastor Corydon."”