Auden is an accomplished rhymer and Shakespeare is not.

Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

There are good books which are only for adults.There are no good books which are only for children.

In short, it became possible – never easy, but possible – in the poet Auden’s phrase to find the mortal world enough.

Why should I even bother? What’s the point, really?”He thought for a moment. “Who says there has to be a point?” he asked. “Or a reason. Maybe it’s just something you have to do.

I don’t know,” I said. “What else did you do for your first eighteen years?””Like I said,” he said as I unlocked the car, “I’m not so sure that you should go by my example.””Why...

The seasonal urge is strong in poets. Milton wrote chiefly in winter. Keats looked for spring to wake him up (as it did in the miraculous months of April and May, 1819). Burns chose autumn....