“Art lies in its fulfillment” - “Die Kunst ist im Vollzug.” This laconic statement from the late essay “Wort und Bild - 'so wahr, so seiend'” (GW 8, 391) summarizes a facet of the hermeneutic experience that receives special emphasis in the final phase of Gadamer's thought. As my provisional translation suggests, the statement, in its concise German form, defies translation. The fulfillment Gadamer has in mind is not the act by which an artist completes a work of art but rather that fulfillment, in the sense of a carrying out, or realization, that occurs every time a work is understandingly read, heard, or seen. In this essay I shall probe the hermeneutic scope of what Gadamer calls this fulfillment, or carrying out, of the work of art. Taking a cue from Gadamer himself, I shall use lyric poetry as the paradigm for such fulfillment, although the conclusions reached will obtain for Gadamer's understanding of aesthetic experience in general. My essay begins, then, with the cardinal features of the hermeneutic experience as a linguistic phenomenon and then moves on to an in-depth look at the properly speculative dimension of poetic speech.