Heteronyms
“ To-day I read almost two pages. Of a book by a mystic poet, And I laughed like one who has wept.
Mystic poets are sick philosophers, And philosophers are mad fools.
Because mystic poets say that flowers feel And they say that stones have souls And that rivers experience ecstasies in the moonlight.
But if flowers could feel they would not be flowers,
They would be people;
And if stones had souls, they would be alive, and not be stones;
And if rivers experienced ecstasies in the moonlight,
Rivers would be sick men.
He must be ignorant of what flowers and stones and rivers are
Who speaks of their feelings.
To speak of the souls of flowers, of rivers,
Is to speak of oneself and of one's own false thoughts.
Thanks be to God that stones are only stones
And that rivers are not other than rivers,
And that flowers are only flowers.
As for me, I write the prose of my poems And am content,
Because I know I understand Nature from outside;
And I do not understand her from inside
Because Nature has no inside;
Otherwise she would not be Nature. ”
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