Poetic words are like the sap

That daily issues

From the birch tree trunk;

They are tempered

And harmonized

By the heavenly elements

Of our earthly nature.

They may be carried on

Into the region of the unlimited,

And much employed

To the very end of our breath.

But without them

There is a prose in principle.

That prose is not effected by words,

And the prose in words

Is not affected by it. In the sense,

There are no words --

A true poetry does not need them.

One may speak all his life,

And not have spoken right;

And one may not have spoken

All his life, and yet all his life

Been giving utterance to what is right.

But without the poetic words

Of the birch sap in daily drink,

And tempered and harmonized

By the heavenly elements

In our earthly nature, . .

What one can continue long

In the possession

Of such precise characteristics?