[history Is] That Terrible Mill In Which

Isn't It Curious How One Has Only To Open A Book Of Verse To Realise Immediately That It Was Written By A Very Fine Poet, Or Else That It Was Written By Someone Who Is Not A Poet At All. In The Case Of The Former, The Lines, The Images, Though They Are Inherent In Each Other, Leap Up And Give One This Shock Of Delight. In The Case Of The Latter, They Lie Flat On The Page, Never Having Lived.

By 'happiness' I Do Not Mean Worldly Success Or Outside Approval, Though It Would Be Priggish To Deny That Both These Things Are Most Agreeable. I Mean The Inner Consciousness, The Inner Conviction That One Is Doing Well The Thing That One Is Best Fitted To Do By Nature.

The Ghost Of The Heart Of Manred Cain And The More Murderous Brain Of Man, Still Redder Nero That Conceived The Death Of His Mother Earth, And Tore Her Womb, To Know The Place Where He Was Conceived.

It Is As Unseeing To Ask What Is The Use Of Poetry As It Would Be To Ask What Is The Use Of Religion.

If One Is A Greyhound, Why Try To Look Like A Pekingese?