Full well thou knowest, song, what grace I mean,
E’en as thou know’st the sunlight I have lost.
Thou knowest the way of it and know’st the sheen
About her brows where the rays are bound and crossed,
E’en as thou knowest joy and know’st joy’s bitter cost.
Thou know’st her grace in moving,
Thou dost her skill in loving,
Thou know’st what truth she proveth,
Thou knowest the heart she moveth,
O song where grief assoneth!
“I imagine that before I had read any modern poetry I had the same inhibition about reading poetry that most people have all the time. They say, ‘I don’t know how to appreciate this, it’s something that I don’t know anything about.’ There is the feeling that you have to take some kind of course before you can understand a poem which I think prevents people from reading poetry. They think that you cannot simply open a book of poems, start reading and instantly enjoy it. I discovered later on that wasn’t true.”
John Ashbery