What is imitated in a lyric poem?
Through more than two thousand years we have appreciated the works of the great dramatists who had their personages speak in the rhythms of metrical language.

Every iambic verse is a deviation from reality.

If they had tried to imitate nature Antigone and Hamlet would have spoken the prose of daily life.

Does a beautiful arch or dome or tower of a building imitate any part of reality?
Is its architectural value dependent upon the similarity to nature?
Or does the melody or harmony in music offer an imitation of the surrounding world?
Wherever we examine without prejudice the mental effects of true works of art in literature or music, in painting or sculpture, in decorative arts or architecture, we find that the central esthetic value is directly opposed to the spirit of imitation.

A work of art may and must start from something which awakens in us the interests of reality and which contains traits of reality, and to that extent it cannot avoid some imitation.