This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet's destiny is to love.

The difference between you and her (whom I to you did once prefer) Is clear enough to settle: She like a diamond shone, but you Shine like an early drop of dew Poised on a red rose petal. The dew-drop carries in its eye Mountain and forest, sea and sky, With every change of weather; Contrariwise, a diamond splits The prospect into idle bits That none can piece together.

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

One gets to the heart of the matter by a series of experiences in the same pattern, but in different colors.

We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

The poet's first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to bore himself-which, of course, means to write only when he has something urgent to say.

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.