My thesis is that revision is creation and that it is a far more exciting and revelatory process than the mere manipulating of word and idea, though at its lowest level it is, of course, also that. My thesis is that we learn form as we learn understanding; my thesis is that metaphor (“to see the world in a grain of sand”) is the great teacher of the poet as he wrestles to discover what he really means, just as it is the point for the reader where intellect and emotion fuse and he meets the poem as he might meet a person with whom he is to fall in love at first sight. But this impact, the impact of a true poem, must have been preceded by a long adventure on the part of its creator: for him what is the value of the finished work compared to what he has found out on the journey of its making? I understand very well why Valéry simply could not bear to “finish” a poem; what interested him was revising it—indefinitely—because he was discovering so much on the way; because he felt that a moment of inspiration could be, in fact, mined forever. It was the same attitude that Yeats expressed in four lines:

中文翻译：

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作为创作的修订：一首诗的成长：卷。1967年6月29日第9期

我的论点是修订就是创造，它是一个比单纯操纵文字和想法更令人兴奋和具有启发性的过程，尽管在最低层次上，当然也是如此。我的论点是我们在学习理解的同时学习形式；我的论点是，隐喻（“在一粒沙中看世界”）是诗人的伟大导师，因为他努力发现自己的真正含义，正如它是读者的智慧和情感融合和融合的关键点。他遇见这首诗，就像遇见一个他一见钟情的人。但是这种影响，一首真正诗的影响，一定是在其创作者的长期冒险之前发生的：对他来说，与他在制作过程中发现的作品相比，完成的作品的价值是多少？我非常理解为什么瓦莱里根本不忍心“完成”一首诗；他感兴趣的是不断地修改它——因为他在路上发现了很多东西；因为他觉得，一瞬间的灵感，其实可以永远挖掘。叶芝用四句台词表达了同样的态度：