Quote of the Day (John Buchan, on Poetry and ‘A Time of National Crisis’)

“A time of national crisis is the very time to turn to poetry. A poet writes, not for the common round only, but for the great moments of life. The greatest poets, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Dante, have written not in times of peace but amid war and unsettlement. There is something in such epochs of crisis which quickens the imagination and the mind, and brings the spiritual world of the poet closer to our common life.”—Scottish novelist, memoirist, soldier, and Canadian Governor-General John Buchan (1875-1940), “The Immoral Memory” (address to the London Burns Club, Jan. 25, 1918), The John Buchan Journal, Spring 2004, Issue 30