We must believe that emotion recollected in tranquillity is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not recollected and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is tranquil only in that it is a passive attending upon the event.
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It seems just possible that a poem might happen to a very young man: but a poem is not poetry --That is a life.
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The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.
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The poet is the priest of the invisible.
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When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences.
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