“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.”

“The child alone a poet is:Spring and Fairyland are his.”

“Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience': They're talking to a single person all the time.”

“Poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun. No poet can hope to understand the nature of poetry unless he has had a vision of the Naked King crucified to the lopped oak, and watched the dancers, red-eyed from the acrid smoke of the sacrificial fires, stamping out the measure of the dance, their bodies bent uncouthly forward, with a monotonous chant of "Kill! kill! kill!" and "Blood! blood! blood!”

“Down, wanton, down! Have you no shameThat at the whisper of Love's name,Or Beauty's, presto! up you raiseYour angry head and stand at gaze?Poor bombard-captain, sworn to reachThe ravelin and effect a breach--Indifferent what you storm or why,So be that in the breach you die!Love may be blind, but Love at leastKnows what is man and what mere beast;Or Beauty wayward, but requiresMore delicacy from her squires.Tell me, my witless, whose one boastCould be your staunchness at the post,When were you made a man of partsTo think fine and profess the arts?Will many-gifted Beauty comeBowing to your bald rule of thumb,Or Love swear loyalty to your crown?Be gone, have done! Down, wanton, down!”

“Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bittersweet mixture for all possible household emergencies and its action varies accordingly as it is taken in a wineglass or a tablespoon, inhaled, gargled or rubbed on the chest by hard fingers covered with rings.”

“When the immense drugged universe explodesIn a cascade of unendurable colourAnd leaves us gasping naked,This is no more than the ectasy of chaos:Hold fast, with both hands, to that royal loveWhich alone, as we know certainly, restoresFragmentation into true being.Ecstasy of Chaos”