The Creed
“One mustn’t accuse Virgil or Ovid of originality, of
wilfully making fictions of such importance. By the
time of the Roman poets, everything was done upon
established authority, and what was original was the
way the derived pieces were assembled.”
~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 25
Eternal truths cannot be honed and changed.
The thinkers and the poets can at best
Make beauties of a truth rise rearranged
In thought and taste. The royal bursar’s chest
Holds everything perfection has to give,
Yet when the coffer opens we must find
Its contents, not attempt to add or sieve.
They wait to guide us, lead, not to bind,
No more than compasses or charts would force
A seaman to sublimest shores. The choice
Is his. Like Eden’s fourfold rivers’ source,
https://davebold370.deviantart.com/art/Completed-Philosopher-s-stone-564603578
Truths flow for drinking if we would rejoice.
Philosophers and poets find that truth
Is ever changeless in immortal youth.