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

Grant us the wil1 to fashion as we feel, Grant us the strength to labor as we know, Grant us the purpose, ribbed and edged with steel, To strike the blow.

To take an analogy: if we say that a democratic government is the best kind of government, we mean that it most completely fulfills the highest function of a government - the realisation of the will of the people.

The poet's perfect expression is the token of a perfect experience; what he says in the best possible way he has felt in the best possible way, that is, completely.

To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential.

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.

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