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Obbligatto for Poets | Poem

 
 
 
 

Obbligatto for Poets
  If in all your life,

  You create one phrase

  That, some centuries hence,

  Still is shorthand for a

  Kind of beauty, a touch

  Of love, an instant of peace,

  The moment of illumination that

  Every soul knows and desires,

  Then you will have changed the world more

  Than any builder of monuments,

  Any slayer of tyrants,

  Or any prattler of the madness

  We so mistake for sanity.

 
                - David Mitchell
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