Poetry

I, too, dislike it:

there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.

The bat, upside-down; the elephant pushing,

a tireless wolf below a tree,

the base-ball fan, the statistician--

"business documents and schoolbooks"--

these phenomena are pleasing,

but when they have been fashioned

into that which is unknowable

we are not entertained.

It may be said of all of us

that we do not admire what we cannot understand;

enigmas are not poetry

(Observations, 2nd ed 1925)

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