Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

If the best man's faults were written on his forehead, he would draw his hat over his eyes.

What female heart can gold despise? / What cat's averse to fish?

He passed the flaming bounds of space and time: / The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, / Where angels tremble while they gaze, / He saw; but blasted with excess of light, / Closed his eyes in endless night.

By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors