Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the universality of its appeal is a matter of course. – John Drinkwater
But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry. – John Drinkwater
The musician – if he be a good one – finds his own perception prompted by the poets perception, and he translates the expression of that perception from the terms of poetry into the terms of music. – John Drinkwater
So it is in poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity if it fails to do this the failure will announce itself either in prose or in insignificant verse. – John Drinkwater