A Religion Addresses The Longing In Us

Emile Saint-blague Had Been A Lively, Versatile Painter In His Youth, But He Had Abused His Energy By Painting Too Many Pictures; So That In What Might Have Been The Ripe Period Of His Art He Had Nothing Left But Ideas. A Man Who Has Nothing Left But Ideas May Be Of Great Service To His Friends, But He Is Of No Use At All To Himself. Emile Was Certainly An Inspiration To His Friends.

The Object Of All Religious Activity Is To Mingle The Human And The Non-human, And The Lower Gods Represent That Which Is Cast Back To The Human From The Non-human - Human Gods Merely, Practice-gods Who Embody The Errors Which Man Makes In First Conceiving The Non-human.

The Rhythmic Pattern Of The Poem, Which Forces Continuity Of Attention - Incites A Pleasurable Compulsion To 'follow' - Is Either A Tried Metrical Suasion-contrivance Or A Specially Invented Pattern Of Physical Insistences, Equally, If Not More, Binding In Its Effect On The Reader. From A Straight Linguistic Point Of View, There Is Room For Wonder If There Is Not Latent Vice In This Environment In Which Pleasurable Physically-compelled Responses, Produced By Incidents Of Poetic Utterance, Are Identified With The Good.

When Modernist Poetry, Or What Not So Long Ago Passed For Modernist Poetry, Can Reach The Stage Where The Following Piece By Mr. Ezra Pound Is Seriously Offered As A Poem, There Is Some Justification For The Plain Reader And Orthodox Critic Who Shrinks From Anything That May Be Labelled 'modernist' Either In Terms Of Condemnation Or Approbation. Better He Thinks, That Ten Authentic Poets Should Be Left For Posterity To Discover Than One Charlatan Should Be Allowed To Steal Into The Temple Of Fame.

Much Of The Magical Effect That Poetry Gives Of Rendering Everything It Touches Pellucid Comes From The Necessity Of Compression That It Imposes. The Impossibility Of Pausing In Poetry As Long As May Be Needed To Make Sense Clear Causes Many A Set Of Words Actually Deficient In Linguistic Workmanship To Pass For An Eloquent Brevity.