"The Necessary Angel"

(By Wallace Stevens)

The acute intelligence of the imagination, the illimitable resources of its memory, its power to possess the moment it perceives - if we were speaking of light itself, and thinking of the relationship between objects and light, no further demonstration would be necesssary. Like light, it adds nothing but itself. What light requires a day to do... the imagination does in a twinkling of an eye. It colors, increases, brings to a beginning and an end, invents language, crushes men and, for that matter, gods in its hands. It says to women more than it is possible to say, it rescues us all from what we have called absolute fact.

"The Poet"

(By Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The universe has three children... which we will call here, the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty... The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.

"He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven"

(By W.B. Yeats)

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths. Enwrought with golden and silver light. The blue and the dim and the dark cloths. Of night and light and the half-light. I would spread the cloths under your feet, but I being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

"Superfluous Advice"

By Dorothy Parker
. Should they whisper false of you.
. Never trouble to deny;
. Should the words they say be true.
. Weep and storm and swear they lie