Art in a time of barbarism …

… First Known When Lost: Alpine.

Each of us comes to a poem with our own unique set of feelings, thoughts, and circumstances, all of which influence how we react to the poem. This does not mean that we change the poem into what we want it to be. (This is where most modern "literary criticism" goes wrong.) Rather, the poem, which was a wholly personal act of imagination and preservation by the poet, now awakens a wholly personal response in each of us.