Poetry deals entirely with those great eternal and mainly forgotten wishes which are the ultimate despots of existence.

Poetry presents things as they are to our emotions, not as they are to any theory, however plausible, or any argument, however conclusive.

If love is in truth a glorious vision, poetry will say that it is a glorious vision, and no philosophers will persuade poetry to say that it is the exaggeration of the instinct of sex.

If bereavement is a bitter and continually aching thing, poetry will say that it is so, and no philosophers will persuade poetry to say that it is an evolutionary stage of great biological value.

And here comes in the whole value and object of poetry, that it is perpetually challenging all systems with the test of a terrible sincerity.