For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.

It is commonly asserted and accepted that Paradise Lost is among the two or three greatest English poems; it may justly be taken as the type of supreme poetic achievement in our literature.

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.

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

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.

This be my pilgrimage and goal Daily to march and find The secret phrases of the soul, The evangels of the mind.

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.