Metaphor creates a new reality from which the original appears to be unreal.

Unfortunately there is nothing more inane than an Easter carol. It is a religious perversion of the activity of Spring in our blood.

Poetry increases the feeling for reality.

I still feel the need of some imperishable bliss.

Most people read poetry listening for echoes because the echoes are familiar to them. They wade through it the way a boy wades through water, feeling with his toes for the bottom: The echoes are the bottom.

Imagination applied to the whole world is vapid in comparison to imagination applied to a detail.

Poetry has to be something more than a conception of the mind. It has to be a revelation of nature. Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential.