Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.
Tell me truly, I implore-- Is there-- is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!
Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors ... on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.
Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.