A Poem Is A Verbal Artifact Which

And None Will Hear The Postman’s Knock Without A Quickening Of The Heart. For Who Can Bear To Feel Himself Forgotten?

History Marched To The Drums Of A Clear Idea...

There Are Bills To Be Paid, Machines To Keep In Repair, Irregular Verbs To Learn, The Time Being To Redeem From Insignificance.

It Has Been Said That A Poem Should Not Mean But Be. This Is Not Quite Accurate. In A Poem, As Distinct From Many Other Kinds Of Verbal Societies, Meaning And Being Are Identical. A Poem Might Be Called A Pseudo-person. Like A Person, It Is Unique And Addresses The Reader Personally. On The Other Hand, Like A Natural Being And Unlike A Historical Person, It Cannot Lie.

Most Poetry Is The Utterance Of A Man In Some State Of Passion, Love, Joy, Grief, Rage, Etc., And No Doubt This Is As It Should Be. But No Man Is Perpetually In A Passion And Those States In Which He Is Amused And Amusing, Detached And Irreverent, If Less Important, Are No Less Amusing. If There Were No Poets Who, Like Byron, Express These States, Poetry Would Lack Something.