Poets forge vocabularies. Their choice of words is often voluntarily lackluster. And the most commonly employed word, the most worn, when used in the right place, will suddenly take on an extraordinary brilliance.
“
Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? …
— the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?
“
Herman Melville | Moby-Dick