Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain.
O you, who in some pretty boat, Eager to listen, have been following Behind my ship, that singing sails along Turn back to look again upon your own shores; Tempt not the deep, lest unawares, In losing me, you yourselves might be lost. The sea I sail has never yet been passed; Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo, And Muses nine point out to me the Bears. You other few who have neck uplifted Betimes to the bread of angels upon Which one lives and does not grow sated, Well may you launch your vessel Upon the deep sea.
The Brain - is wider than the Sky - For - put them side by side - The one the other will contain With ease - and You - beside - The Brain is deeper than the sea - For- hold them - Blue to Blue - The one the other will absorb - As Sponges - Buckets - do - The Brain is just the weight of God - For - Heft them - Pound for Pound - And they will differ - if they do - As Syllable from Sound.
Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave, Then some leap'd overboard with fearful yell, As eager to anticipate their grave.
Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine meter of civilization.