Poetry is two quite distinct things, and may be either or both. One is a series of words that are intrinsically musical, in clang-tint and rhyme; as the single words cellar-door and sarcoma are musical. The other is a series of ideas, false in themselves, that offer a means of emotional and imaginative escape from the harsh realities of everyday. In brief, poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music-a slap on the back in waltz time-a grand release of longings and repressions to the time of flutes, harps, sackbuts, psalteries and the usual strings.