
George Reid (1841-1913), “Evening” (1873)
“In old-fashioned novels, we often have the situation of a man or a woman who realizes only at the end of the book, and usually when it is too late, who it was that he or she had loved for many years without knowing it. So a great many haiku tell us something that we have seen but not seen. They do not give us a satori, an enlightenment; they show us that we have had an enlightenment, had it often, — and not recognized it.”
R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn (Hokuseido Press 1952), page 322.
Although Blyth’s observation relates to haiku in particular, I would suggest that it is applicable to all forms of poetry, in all ages and in all places.
Source: First Known When Lost