It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to
literary productions in rhyme and metre. The written poem is only poetry
_talking_, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are
poetry _acting_. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly
poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf
Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains which
he himself could never hope to hear.--_Ruskin._