On Writers

Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY,
Julian and Maddalo

[Could Shelley have foreseen blues music?]


Some write, confin'd by physic; some, by debt;
Some, for 'tis Sunday; some because 'tis wet;
Another writes because his father writ,
And proves himself a bastard by his wit.

EDWARD YOUNG, Epistle to Mr. Pope