Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Truth on its own is often refused, and pleasure on its own is forgotten by Thursday. Put them together and something gets past the guard: a person enjoys the thing and finds they have accepted the difficult part along with it. That combination is why a phrase sticks where an argument would have been resisted.

There is a lesson in it for anyone who has to tell people something they will not want. Do not choose between being accurate and being bearable. Find the version that manages both, and notice how much further it travels than the one that was merely correct.