Ultramundane Creation

"The first literary composition of a quick-minded child is always some sort of jingle. It starts out with an [unclear: inans] idea—half an idea. Sticking to prose, it could go no further. But to its primary imbecility it now adds a meaningless phrase which, while logically unrelated, provides an agreeable concord in more sound—and the result is the primordial tadpole of a sonnet. All the sonnets of the world, save a few of the miraculous (and perhaps accidental) quality, partake of this fundamental non-sensicality. In all of them there are ideas that would sound idiotic in prose, and phrases that would sound clumsy and uncouth in prose."—H. L. Mencken, in "The Poet and His Art."

If there are gods, and it is claimed there are,
Most certainly they live not on the earth,
But, being products of celestial birth,
They dwell instead upon some fulgent star.
And surely, there, all things that lovely are
Have their fulfilment, and there is no dearth
Of things whose presence gives to life its worth,
With nothing ill their qualities to mar.

And surely there, indeed, there was distilled
Beauty in pliant form, which skilful gods
Moulded into your form, and forth with filled
With vibrant life which, now through orbs of blue
Pours swift delight upon this world of clods—
This dark, ephemeral, tarnished foil for you.

—Thos. G. L. Cockroft.