“Poetry is in fact speech only employed to carry the meaning and emotion of the poet.”

Presenting poetry as heightened communication shaped by both sense and feeling · Letter to Robert Bridges

• Poetry
• Truth

“Sprung rhythm is measured by feet of from one to four syllables, regularly, and the feet are either trochees or dactyls.”

Explaining the rhythmic principle he developed to reproduce the movement of natural speech · Preface to Poems

• Music
• Poetry

“What you look hard at seems to look hard at you, whether you look at a thing or a person.”

Reflecting on the intense, reciprocal attention involved in observing the world · Journal

• Nature
• Truth

“Nothing is so beautiful as spring.”

A brief expression of wonder at the renewing beauty of the natural world · Journal

• Beauty
• Hope
• Nature

“The poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened.”

Arguing that poetry should intensify living speech rather than retreat into an artificial idiom · Letter to Robert Bridges

• Art
• Poetry