The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), A Midsummer Night's Dream
-- Act v, Sc. 1
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), A Midsummer Night's Dream
-- Act v, Sc. 1
Related:
- The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That... - The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.
Wm. Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's... - The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I usually pick one
small topic like this to give a lecture on.
Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the... - Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, And... - The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
A Midsummer Night's Dream -- Act v, Sc.... - The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen,
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), A Midsummer Night's... - How infinitely superior to our physical senses are those of the mind!
The spiritual eye sees not only rivers of water but... - I 'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), A Midsummer Night's... - O, hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
A Midsummer Night's Dream -- Act i, Sc....
