Okay, you've probably figured out by now that I not only love poetry, but I'm a fan of meta-poetry that comments on poetry itself. While plenty of recent poets have done that, William Wordsworth was also known to do it. Here's his tribute to the form and some of its masters1
Scorn Not the Sonnet
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!
Footnotes
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Shakespeare and Petrarch are generally known as the kings of the sonnet, and Dante, Milton, and Spenser are still famous and read in most literature programs. But the other two are ones you see rarely. Torquato Tasso was a hugely influential Italian Renaissance poet who's sadly best remembered today for going mad, and Luís de Camöens is considered the great poet of Portugal (and Tasso dedicated a sonnet to him). ↩