I can only say that one's individual situation is more real and important to oneself than the devastations of fates and empires especially when they do not vitally affect oneself

Nobody ever told me what to read, or ever put poetry in my way

I never joined the army for patriotic reasons.

Poetical appreciation is only newly bursting on me.

I cant look at things in the simple, large way that great poets do.

I can only say that one's individual situation is more real and important to oneself than the devastations of fates and empires especially when they do not vitally affect oneself

I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.