Every English Poet Should Master The Rules

Abstract Reason, Formerly The Servant Of Practical Human Reasons, Has Everywhere Become Its Master, And Denies Poetry Any Excuse For Existence. Though Philosophers Like To Define Poetry As Irrational Fancy, For Us It Is Practical, Humorous, Reasonable Way Of Being Ourselves. Of Never Acquiescing In A Fraud; Of Never Accepting The Secondary-rate In Poetry, Painting, Music, Love, Friends. Of Safeguarding Our Poetic Institutions Against The Encroachments Of Mechanized, Insensate, Inhumane, Abstract Rationality.

New Beginnings And New Shoots Spring Again From Hidden Roots Pull Or Stab Or Cut Or Burn, Love Must Ever Yet Return.

Mythology Is The Study Of Whatever Religious Or Heroic Legends Are So Foreign To A Student's Experience That He Cannot Believe Them To Be True. . . . Myth Has Two Main Functions. The First Is To Answer The Sort Of Awkward Questions That Children Ask, Such As: 'who Made The World? How Will It End? Who Was The First Man? Where Do Souls Go After Death?'. . . . The Second Function Of Myth Is To Justify An Existing Social System And Account For Traditional Rites And Customs.

Since The Age Of 15 Poetry Has Been My Ruling Passion And I Have Never Intentionally Undertaken Any Task Or Formed Any Relationship That Seemed Inconsistent With Poetic Principles; Which Has Sometimes Won Me The Reputation Of An Eccentric.

Lovers To-day And For All Time Preserve The Meaning Of My Rhyme: Love Is Not Kindly Nor Yet Grim But Does To You As You To Him.