Emily Dickinson–makes the significant suggestion for us that it was less possible to
follow the bent of such a mind in his day than it was in 1850, or than it is today.
Science is lamented and deplored by contemporary romanticists. For the metaphysical poet,
Science is the freedom of the universe–and in the future our greatest poets may well be
poets of this mind. Some Moses striking a rock on the desert Mr. Eliot describes as the
wasteland and with his touch liberating a vast unused mentality; the excitement of
enormous sweeps, the dizziness of looking in all directions at the surrounding fact.
*"The poet is a valued member of the community, for he is known to be a poet; his
value will increase as he grows to recognize the deeper insight into nature with which
modern science provides him. The metaphysician is a poet, often a very great one, but
unfortunately he is not known to be a poet, because he strives to clothe his poetry in the
language of reason, and hence it follows that he is liable to be a dangerous member of the
community."—Karl Pearson: Grammar of Science, Part I, p. 17.
from Circumference: Varieties of Metaphysical Verse, 1456-1928. Ed. Genevieve
Taggard. New York: Covici Friede Publishers, 1929.