"The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts"

This quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a metaphor for the innovative process of many poets. The Helicon is a mountain in Greek folklore, which was stated to be the house of the Muses and the Graces, and was crowned with sunlight. Longfellow is saying that for lots of poets, the imaginative process is not a location of joy and inspiration, but rather a dark and gloomy place. It is an old, mouldering house, loaded with gloom and haunted by ghosts. This could be interpreted as a metaphor for the struggles and difficulties that numerous poets deal with in their creative process. It is a tip that the imaginative procedure is often a difficult and tough journey, and that it is not always a place of sunshine and happiness.