John Drinkwater Quotes

When you defile the pleasant streams,
And the wild bird's abiding place,
You massacre a million dreams,
And cast your spittle in God's face

John Drinkwater

Dream, Nature, Bird

John Drinkwater (1919). “Poems, 1908-1919”

45 Copy quote
A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly artificial divisions which have no real being.

John Drinkwater

Real, Expression, Essence

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.18, Library of Alexandria

15 Copy quote
The poet's perfect expression is the token of a perfect experience; what he says in the best possible way he has felt in the best possible way, that is, completely.

John Drinkwater

Expression, Perfect, Way

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.5, Library of Alexandria

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Any long work in which poetry is persistent, be it epic or drama or narrative, is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed into a related whole by an energy distinct from that which evoked them.

John Drinkwater

Drama, Epic, Long

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.25, Library of Alexandria

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Grant us the wil1 to fashion as we feel, Grant us the strength to labor as we know, Grant us the purpose, ribbed and edged with steel, To strike the blow.

John Drinkwater

Strength, Fashion, Blow

John Drinkwater (1919). “Poems, 1908-1919”

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So it is in poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity; if it fails to do this the failure will announce itself either in prose or in insignificant verse.

John Drinkwater

Kind, Failing, Mood

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”

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When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is endowing the word with life.

John Drinkwater

Perfect, Poet, Selection

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.30, Library of Alexandria

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Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way.

John Drinkwater

Communication, Way, Certain

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.8, Library of Alexandria

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The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression of that perception from the terms of poetry into the terms of music.

John Drinkwater

Expression, Perception, Musician

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.33, Library of Alexandria

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Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the universality of its appeal is a matter of course.

John Drinkwater

Men, Desire, Matter

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.35, Library of Alexandria

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To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential.

John Drinkwater

May, Poet, Entertaining

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.4, Library of Alexandria

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To take an analogy: if we say that a democratic government is the best kind of government, we mean that it most completely fulfills the highest function of a government - the realisation of the will of the people.

John Drinkwater

Mean, Government, People

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”

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We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order - poetry; and to put this essential poetry into different classes is impossible.

John Drinkwater

Art, Order, Class

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.36, Library of Alexandria

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It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

John Drinkwater

Form, Should, Verses

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.5, Library of Alexandria

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For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.

John Drinkwater

Art, Men, Mood

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.8, Library of Alexandria

16 Copy quote
But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

John Drinkwater

Song, Art, Connections

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.34, Library of Alexandria

7 Copy quote
The written word is everything.

John Drinkwater

Written Word, Written

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.4, Library of Alexandria

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Great men are rare, poets are rarer, but the great man who is a poet, transfiguring his greatness, is the rarest of all events.

John Drinkwater

Greatness, Men, Poetry

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.16, Library of Alexandria

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And not a girl goes walking Along the Cotswold lanes But knows men's eyes in April Are quicker than their brains.

John Drinkwater

Girl, Eye, Men

John Drinkwater (1919). “Poems, 1908-1919”

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This be my pilgrimage and goal Daily to march and find The secret phrases of the soul, The evangels of the mind.

John Drinkwater

Goal, Soul, Mind

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There can be no proof that Blake's lyric is composed of the best words in the best order; only a conviction, accepted by our knowledge and judgment, that it is so.

John Drinkwater

Order, Judgment, Accepted

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.8, Library of Alexandria

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If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.

John Drinkwater

Imperfect, Circumstances, Ifs

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.4, Library of Alexandria

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It is commonly asserted and accepted that Paradise Lost is among the two or three greatest English poems; it may justly be taken as the type of supreme poetic achievement in our literature.

John Drinkwater

Taken, Two, Achievement

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.11, Library of Alexandria

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In the corridors under tehre is nothing but sleep. And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep On moon-washed apples of wonder.

John Drinkwater

Sleep, Moon, Apples

'Moonlit Apples' (1917)

7 Copy quote

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Born: June 1, 1882
Died: March 25, 1937
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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