Picking and Choosing

Literature is a phase of life: if one is afraid of it,
the situation is irremediable; if one approaches it familiarly,
what one says of it is worthless.
The opaque allusion -- the simulated flight upward,
accomplishes nothing. Why cloud the fact
that Shaw is self-conscious in the field of sentiment
but is otherwise rewarding? that James
is all that has been said of him. It is not Hardy the novelist
and Hardy the poet, but one man interpreting life as emotion.
The critic should know what he likes:
Gordon Craig with his "this is I" and "this is mine,"
with his three wise men, his "sad French greens" and his "Chinese cherry"
Gordon Craig, so inclinational and unashamed - a critic.
And Burke is a psychologist -- of acute, raccoon-like curiosity.
Summa diligentia; to the humbug whose name is so amusing -
very young and very rushed - , Caesar crossed the Alps
on the top of a "diligence" !
We are not daft about the meaning,
but this familiarity with wrong meaning puzzles one.
Humming-bug, the candles are not wired for electricity.
Small dog, going over the lawn, nipping the linen and saying
that you have a badger - remember Xenophon;
only the most rudimentary behaviour is necessary to put us on the scent.
"A right good salvo of barks," a few strong wrinkles puckering
the skin between the ears, is all we ask.

--Marianne Moore