Poetry (n.) falsifies the ethics of a real relationship when it keeps it at arm's length — stamping it as a mere accident and a puzzle for thought, a lightning rod carried in the pocket.
Poetry (n.) one's own life from a distance is a gift common among criminals — and among the melancholy, where the aesthetic kind finds relief in it and the ethical kind only aggravation.
Poetry (n.) deals with immediacy and cannot think an ambiguous situation: raise one doubt whether the lovers are solvent qua lovers, and poetry turns away — "this is a sign thou dost not love."
Poetry (n.) is said to reconcile one with existence; rather it arouses one against it, for it is unjust by its quantitative estimate, having use only for the elect — a poor sort of reconciliation.
Poetry (n.) is idolatry refined: what was paganism is lived again in every generation, and only when outlived is idolatry reduced to a careless existence in the innocence of poetry.