¹ Mr. Spender was, in this instance, conscious enough of it to permit himself a certain visionary licence: ‘the land reflected in the sea’, ‘the shore … imaged above ribbed sand’ — I have never seen this physical phenomenon myself, at any rate; but I willingly accept it in the poem.

² When personal poetry fails, it is because the personal experience from which it derives so possesses the poet’s mind that he cannot see through it to the poetic experience: he is unwilling to sacrifice the personal meaning to the poetic meaning. Once again, it is a failure of patience.