The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes. – W. Somerset Maugham

It is the timber of poetry that wears most surely, and there is no timber that has not strong roots among the clay and worms. – John Millington Synge

[P]oetry often brings consolation to the heart which prose has failed to touch… – Luigi, Sweet Songs for Mourning Mothers, 1884