In Defense of Poetry

Abstract

Poetry, we are told by men who make it often and green, should be, not mean. Which edict, I take it,since usually set forth in verse that is at once both lyric and terse, means not so much as is. Well, since it merely exists, like a felicitous fig-leaf the chief application of which is to hide a transcendental itch, we can ignore it, as most people choose, abuse it, clutch it to our collective loins, or, in a moment of madness, enjoin its authors, who seem to know their teleological beans, to explain just what the hell it means-