In these final lines, Moore’s speaker reaffirms the two ingredients for real poetry: “the raw material of poetry”—in other words, language and form—and “that which is… genuine”—in other words, powerful evocations of the world which raise the hair and induce pupil dilations. The poem slowly works its way to make this claim, revealing at the end this central idea.

The phrase “in the meantime” points to the failure of poets to become true “literalists of the imagination.” However, the phrase carries an optimistic tone: this is a matter of when, not if.

In one of the poem’s most striking images, Moore proposes the goal for poetic creation: “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” The gardens are the landscape in the reader’s mind in which the poem unfolds. The “real toads” represent the objects the poet hopes to evoke: not literally real, but as vivid as language can render. Of all things, Moore chooses the toad for its peculiarity. The “real toads” are all the more vivid and particular in our minds for their strangeness.

Moore suggests the ideal approach is to be a “literalist of the imagination,” a poet who stirs the imagination through precise, evocative imagery. Such a literalist uses language to create a lifelike object in the reader’s imagination—be it a bat or a wild horse—rather than to offer an abstract statement about it. Moore places the phrase “literalist of the imagination” in quotation marks because it drawn from the writings of William Butler Yeats, the famous Irish poet who was a contemporary of Moore.

Moore’s ingredients for true poetry are “the raw material of poetry”—that is, language and technique—as well as an attention to the genuine. The fault of the “half poets” lies not in their misdirected attentions but in their loose grasp of the raw material. A half poet cannot make poetry, even out of genuine subjects such as the “wild horse taking a roll.”

The verb “dragged” applies to the “phenomena” listed in the previous stanza. The contrast between these two words is striking: “phenomena” means “ideas”; “dragged” implies moving heavy objects. Moore’s diction here conveys the speaker’s broadest claim that poetry ought to render its subjects “real” in the mind. The purpose of poetry is to make ideas into objects, to give them weight.

The image of the critic gets to the heart of the poem’s claim. The critic is “immovable” in the sense of being unable to be moved emotionally. The critic is too busy with the pursuit of “high-minded interpretation.” However, the critic is nonetheless “twinkling his skin”: a skin-tingling sensation overtakes him as he reads. Even for the critic there is “a place for the genuine,” for pure feeling.

In an intriguing use of enjambment, Moore leaves the word “tireless” hanging at the end of the line right after the description of the wild horse’s “roll.” This associatively evokes the roll of a tire, even though “tireless” means something else entirely given the context provided in the next line.

These lines describe poetry from an affective perspective. When encountering poetry which captures the “genuine,” the reader experiences a physical response: the hair stands up, the eyes dilate, etc. As Moore’s speaker goes on to explain, these reactions are “useful” in themselves, not merely as fodder for interpretation. These unconscious reactions, arising from language which stirs the depths of our imaginations, are the whole point.

The speaker begins the poem from a position of “perfect contempt” for poetry. This contempt is really more of a lover’s complaint, because the speaker spends the rest of the poem seeking the ideal and the good in poetry. This initial tone of skepticism is merely a starting place, an attitude to contrast the prescriptive hopefulness which slowly builds as the poem works towards its conclusion.

The noun “fiddle” is cleverly used here. It represents a triple entendre, referring to poetry in several metaphorical senses. Poetry is “all this fiddle” in the musical sense, a fiddle being a violin. Like music, poetry is entertainment, and thus can be seen as unimportant. “Fiddle” also refers to the act of fiddling, of fussing about with something—an act with which all poets are familiar. Last, a “fiddle” refers to small sum, the word being slang for a sixteenth of a British pound. Once again, the point is that poetry is not worth much.

The noun “insolence” means having a prideful, haughty, or overbearing disposition. It generally describes a person’s behavior that makes apparent their contempt for inferiors. The noun “triviality” means the quality of being common or basic. Using these two disdainful nouns to refer to the autocrats’ behavior, the speaker implies that these “half-poets” have overwhelming flaws of character that they must contend with in order to make good poetry.

An “autocrat” is a person who has absolute controlling authority or influence. An “autocrat” is also an absolute monarch or ruler. The use of this word suggests that those who consume art and have the influence to control culture are not only unimaginative but despotic.

Notice that the speaker lists many things that constitute the genuine subjects of poetry. However, she lists them without adding poetic descriptions to them. This type of list underscores her point: with a genuine subject and the raw material of poetry, she can create an image in the mind of her reader rather than creating a complicated metaphor onto which the reader can place overwrought interpretation. This list can be read as a metaphysical moment in which the speaker enacts the type of poetic expression for which she advocates.

The pronoun “it” that the speaker claims to dislike refers to “poetry,” the title of this poem. The adverb “too” suggests that the speaker is agreeing with an unknown person’s complaints about poetry and that the entire poem will be an extended explanation, or justification, of her dislike for poetry. This setup makes the poem appear more conversational, as if the audience were participating in a conversation with friends or colleagues.