No verse is libre for the man who wants to do a good job.

Christ can very well stand as an heroic figure. The hero need not be of wisdom all compounded. Also he is not wholly to blame for the religion that's been foisted on to him.

'Tis the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting, bid the world's hounds come to horn!

Objectivity and again objectivity, and expression: no hindside-before-ness, no straddled adjectives (as "addled mosses dank"), no Tennysonianness of speech; nothing-nothing that you couldn't, in some circumstance, in the stress of some emotion, actually say.

It doesn't matter which leg of your table you make first, so long as the table has four legs and will stand up solidly when you have finished it.

What counts is the cultural level

The intellect is a very nice whirligig toy, but how people take it seriously is more than I can understand.