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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: indicate what is beyond; he raises us through earth to heaven. He
expresses what the better part of us would fain say, and the half-conscious
feeling is strengthened by the expression. He is his own critic, for the
spirit of poetry and of criticism are not divided in him. His mission is
not to disguise men from themselves, but to reveal to them their own
nature, and make them better acquainted with the world around them. True
poetry is the remembrance of youth, of love, the embodiment in words of the
happiest and holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of
the greatest deeds of the past. The poet of the future may return to his
greater calling of the prophet or teacher; indeed, we hardly know what may
not be effected for the human race by a better use of the poetical and
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