Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest he has to discover for himself. - Stephen Spender

After the first powerful plain manifesto The black statement of pistons, without more fuss But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station.

A poet can only write about what is true to his own experience, not about what he would like to be true to his experience. Poetry does not state truth, it states the conditions within which something felt is true. Even while he is writing about the little portion of reality which is part of his experience, the poet may be conscious of a different reality outside. His problem is to relate the small truth to the sense of a wider, perhaps theoretically known, truth outside his experience.

For I had expected always Some brightness to hold in trust, Some final innocence To save from dust