There is nothing real in life that isn’t more real for being beautifully described. Small-minded critics often point out that such and such a poem, for all its generous rhythms, is saying nothing more profound than: it’s a nice day. But it’s not easy to say it’s a nice day, and the nice day itself passes. Our duty, then, is to preserve that nice day in endless, flowering memory and garland with new flowers and new stars the fields and skies of the empty, transient external world.
