We Learn What Poetry Is - If

Not The Intense Moment Isolated, With No Before And After, But A Lifetime Burning In Every Moment.

If We Are Moved By A Poem, It Has Meant Something, Perhaps Something Important, To Us; If We Are Not Moved, Then It Is, As Poetry, Meaningless.

To Do The Useful Thing, To Say The Courageous Thing, To Contemplate The Beautiful Thing: That Is Enough For One Man's Life.

Poetry Is Not A Turning Loose Of Emotion, But An Escape From Emotion.

For I Have Known Them All Already, Known Them All— Have Known The Evenings, Mornings, Afternoons, I Have Measured Out My Life With Coffee Spoons.