To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential. — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
It is commonly asserted and accepted that Paradise Lost is among the two or three greatest English poems; it may justly be taken as the type of supreme poetic achievement in our literature. — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
The poet's perfect expression is the token of a perfect experience; what he says in the best possible way he has felt in the… — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
This be my pilgrimage and goal Daily to march and find The secret phrases of the soul, The evangels of the mind. — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
When you defile the pleasant streams, And the wild bird's abiding place, You massacre a million dreams, And cast your spittle in God's face — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry. — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
There can be no proof that Blake's lyric is composed of the best words in the best order; only a conviction, accepted by our… — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression… — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
And not a girl goes walking Along the Cotswold lanes But knows men's eyes in April Are quicker than their brains. — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order - poetry; and to… — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the… — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
Any long work in which poetry is persistent, be it epic or drama or narrative, is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed… — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way. — John Drinkwater Copy Share Image
