Books of Learning
Day unto day uttereth speech.
Keep back somewhat of seeming wise.
I read little logic & rhetoric, confer little
mathematics. Special receipt of every
lawyer case defects of the mind’s reach
where we settle the rules & humor of the scholar
better to be swallowed than studied, chewed
and digested in parts: less important arguments.
Belly in perpetual flux, I see the river
run below as well as above ground.
I read about special children in other countries
searching for deeply buried missiles.
Night unto night sheweth songs.
Where died a whole generation of men
who only dug up logs—parallel swinging palms.
I am learned of the worldly and unworldly,
a tacit kind of party, a gruesome conformity
evolving in the disinterest of present & future generations.
