“How to sustain the miracle Of being, that like a muted bell, Or like some ocean-breathing shell, Quivers, intense and still?”

Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success.

Who, except the poets, reads poetry?

History Coming too close Is monstrous, like a doll That is alive and bigger than the child Who tries to hold it.

Poetry is the fiery index to the genius of the age.

Music proposes. Sound disposes.

There is no end to grief. Nor no end to poetry.

The poet, like the lover, is a person unable to reconcile what he knows with what he feels. His peculiarity is that he is under a certain compulsion to do so.

The poet who speaks out of the deepest instincts of man will be heard. The poet who creates a myth beyond the power of man to realize is gagged at the peril of the group that binds him. He is the true revolutionary: he builds a new world.