“The Streaks of the Tulip”

Abstract

Jeffrey, as we saw, was scornful of “Strange fits of passion have I known” and particularly of the two last lines:

“O mercy!” to myself I cried,

“If Lucy should be dead”

The business of a poet … is to examine, not the individual, but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances: he does not number the streaks of the tulip

Johnson, Rasselas