Music Heard So Deeply That It Is

One Of The Surest Tests Of The Superiority Or Inferiority Of A Poet Is The Way In Which A Poet Borrows. Immature Poets Imitate Mature Poets Steal Bad Poets Deface What They Take And Good Poets Make It Into Something Better Or At Least Something Different. The Good Poet Welds His Theft Into A Whole Of Feeling Which Is Unique Utterly Different Than That From Which It Is Torn The Bad Poet Throws It Into Something Which Has No Cohesion. A Good Poet Will Usually Borrow From Authors Remote In Time Or Alien In Language Or Diverse In Interest.

The Nightingales Are Singing Near The Convent Of The Sacred Heart, And Sang Within The Bloody Wood When Agamemnon Cried Aloud, And Let Their Liquid Siftings Fall To Stain The Stiff Dishonored Shroud.

We Do Not Quite Say That The New Is More Valuable Because It Fits In; But Its Fitting In Is A Test Of Its Value - A Test, It Is True, Which Can Only Be Slowly And Cautiously Applied, For We Are None Of Us Infallible Judges Of Conformity.

Culture Is The One Thing That We Cannot Deliberately Aim At. It Is The Product Of A Variety Of More Or Less Harmonious Activities, Each Pursued For Its Own Sake.

In A World Of Fugitives The One Who Stays Home Will Seem To Be Running Away