“For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.”
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A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly artificial divisions which have no real being.
If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.
To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential.
Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way.
