The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.
Think neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices are fathered by our heroism. Virtues are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts
Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question
The majority of mankind is lazyminded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith.
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence