Elizabeth

By Edgar Allan Poe

                         Elizabeth, it surely is most fit
                         [Logic and common usage so commanding]
                         In thy own book that first thy name be writ,
                         Zeno and other sages notwithstanding;
                         And I have other reasons for so doing
                         Besides my innate love of contradiction;
                         Each poet--if a poet-- in pursuing
                         The muses thro' their bowers of Truth or Fiction,
                         Has studied very little of his part,
                         Read nothing, written less--in short's a fool
                         Endued with neither soul, nor sense, nor art,
                         Being ignorant of one important rule,
                         Employed in even the theses of the school--
                         Called--I forget the heathenish Greek name--
                         [Called anything, its meaning is the same]
                         "Always write first things uppermost in the heart."