Many people have abandoned poetry, saying they don’t know what’s good and what isn’t. Usually they do know — but they’ve been shown wretched poetry and told it was great, so they’ve lost faith in their own judgment.
First, if you think a poem is horrid, it probably is.
With practice you can learn to elucidate why it is horrid.
The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
О perpetual revolution of configured stars,
О perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
О world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?
or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?
declare if thou knowest it all.
Where is the way where light dwelleth?
and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof,
and that thou shouldest know the paths
to the house thereof?
Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born?
or because the number of thy days is great?
