Maryann,
Though an old topic, many of the most beautiful and passionate poems address the art of poetry itself, though they need not be written solely about poetry. Here are a couple of examples of ones I enjoy:
A BOOK of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
- Khayyam/Fitzgerald
Sonnet 106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rime,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
- Shakespeare
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