But what is poetry? There must be a poet who poetises in advance the essence of poetry. This will be the poet who ventures into the foreign, to let the fire come toward him. This is what occurs in Hölderlin's hymnal poetry. This river poetry never forgets the source, in its issuing and flowing from the source. What it says is the holy, which, "beyond" the gods, determines the gods. The poet stands between human beings and gods. The poet, and the river, are demigods.