But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the universality of its appeal is a matter of course.

A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly artificial divisions which have no real being.

And not a girl goes walking Along the Cotswold lanes But knows men's eyes in April Are quicker than their brains.

When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is endowing the word with life.

It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression of that perception from the terms of poetry into the terms of music.