He had some bad poetry, but which poet doesn't? Most is sublime. He is probably my favorite. I am fond of the sonnets, and I give you here one of his haunting Epitaphs from Chiabrera. (This, however, is not a sonnet.) (Remember the last line and treasure it as you age.)

This one is VI.


"DESTINED to war from very infancy
Was I, Roberto Dati, and I took
In Malta the white symbol of the Cross:
Nor in life's vigorous season did I shun
Hazard or toil; among the sands was seen
Of Libya; and not seldom, on the banks
Of wide Hungarian Danube, 'twas my lot
To hear the sanguinary trumpet sounded.
So lived I, and repined not at such fate:
This only grieves me, for it seems a wrong,
That stripped of arms I to my end am brought
On the soft down of my paternal home.
Yet haply Arno shall be spared all cause
To blush for me. Thou, loiter not nor halt
In thy appointed way, and bear in mind
How fleeting and how frail is human life!"

At his best, extraordinary. At his worst, drivel.

I would have to rate William Wordsworth highly even if he'd written nothing other than the lines "And then my heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils." Although I don't know his poetry well, other than the poem previously mentioned, a number of his poems have given me food for thought. Surely that's at least a part of a poet's mission?