" Let the young men come to the study of nature
and learn what is fixed
and what is transient.
Life is too short otherwise. "
(Aristotle . . . more or less)

Once he sets about it, every man has a theory
no smaller than the universe
and an Ariel in it
who will carry an integer and a nul for him
to a star's power,
so let him beware of his agents,
for it is one thing to be Paracelsus and the first man
to make ether, and another to theorize
that every living thing has an archeus,
making one a beech tree,
one a mackerel,

and one a quartz,
and still another to understand nature.

And let them watch their examples,
for in England the example of quintessence
is The Law Of England
is the quintessence of reason .

They will try to sneak into heaven on that word,
especially the poets, who are likely to be found
under the robes of magister
or where philosophy looks from a rock
or in the eye,
the supreme governor,
or where conclusion lies in a name,
as in Alexander of Aphrodisias

or nesting in a phrase,
" the gravel of God, "
in the place where man feels
the final declaration
of mass and destiny,
whereas " the onion of gods "
is a kind of goat
kicking up its heels in the mind,

or looking at horses,
Giorgione's horse
which started out as a plane
on a canvas,
and the bronze horse
which was made because
Andrea del Verrocchio liked to walk around it
and feel the various parts with his hand,
crying out that he felt things beyond understanding,
he would not settle for understanding,
his horse was the imagination,
and he was not satisfied with the horse either;

in other words, in the fifth element
if all matter is composed of three elements
and the fourth is comedy.