As if it were necessary to trot back generation after generation to the eastern records! As if the beauty and sacredness of the demonstrable must fall behind that of the mythical! As if men do not make their mark out of any times! As if the opening of the western continent by discovery and what has transpired since in the North and South America were less than the small theatre of the antique or the aimless sleepwalking of the middle ages! […] The American poets are to enclose old and new for America is the race of races. Of them a bard is to be commensurate with a people. To him the other continents arrive as contributions…he gives them reception for their sake and his own sake. His spirit responds to his country’s spirit. […] the expression of the American poet is to be transcendent and new. It is to be indirect and not direct or descriptive or epic. Its quality goes through these to be much more. […]
A great poem is for ages and ages in common and for all
degrees and complexions an all departments and sects and for a woman as
much as a man and a man as much as a woman. A great poem is no finish
to a man or woman but rather a beginning.