Poetry is life distilled. –

Poetry is a life-cherishing force.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry. Yes indeed.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.

Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation's tears in shoulder blades.

Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feelings, reviews the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the springtime of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature, by vivid delineations of its tenderest and softest feelings, and through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life.