Preface to Lyrical Ballads • Paragraph 12
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To conclude: the object of these Prefaces is to vindicate the choice of subjects and the language of these Poems; to show that what is called poetic diction is often a mask under which feebleness of thought is concealed; and that the real language of poetry is the language of men in a condition of freedom from the restraints of artifice and the constraints of fashionable life.