Whatever its actual content and overt interest, every poem is rooted in imaginative awe. Poetry can do a hundred and one things, delight, sadden, disturb, amuse, instruct—it may express every possible shade of emotion, and describe every conceivable kind of event, but there is only one thing that all poetry must do; it must praise all it can for being and for happening.

Auden argues that beneath poetry’s many surface purposes—entertainment, instruction, emotional expression—lies a single, indispensable impulse: “imaginative awe,” a stance of wonder before existence. Even when a poem is dark, satirical, or unsettling, it still testifies that the world is worth attending to, because it is. The claim that poetry “must praise” does not mean it must flatter or approve; rather, it must affirm being and happening as fit subjects for serious, heightened attention. In this view, poetry’s ethical and metaphysical function is to counter indifference and nihilism by renewing perception and gratitude for the sheer fact of experience.