Original artwork, not a still
Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton
You speak As one who fed on poetry.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Poetry is imagined as food whose influence can be heard in someone’s speech. The comparison makes literary language something absorbed into the person, rather than simply quoted. These lines identify that quality without establishing whether the speaker admires it, mocks it or regards it with concern.
Context reviewed
