A True Poet Is The Successor Of The Prophets. Poem by Dr. Antony Theodore

Artistic discipline
and religious discipline
can complement one another.

Religious ascetics have something
to learn from the natural
asceticism of the artist:
it is unself¬conscious, organic,
integrated in his art.

It does not run the risk
of becoming an end in itself.

But the artist also has something
to gain from religious asceticism.

It not only raises him above his subject
and his material but above his art itself.

He can now control everything,
even his art, which usually controls him.

A true poet is the successor of the prophets.

The capacity for mystical experience
is enlarged by the poetic instinct.