The Poet as Philosopher
These poems I have written thirty days,
some bad, some good, but written on the dot.
You doubtless think it nothing but some play;
if so, then you know nothing of my thought
and have in false assumption thus been caught.
You think in writing these philosophy
was different from idea and word I sought?
Then fool you were, and fool you stay, and ought.
The poets reason well in things they say,
though you may slight their words as you were taught;
and yes, may then go wrong -- so also may
the finest arguments that mind has wrought.
'They argue not' -- your sleeping brain must rot;
the bard must work with plausibility
but argument he does; he hammers thought.
Thus fool you were, and fool you stay, and ought.
He cannot prove, perhaps, or rarely may,
but reasoning is what he does, and not
some gibber on the page. He puts more thought
in all the thoughts he writes, and what to say,
than you have ever done. And in his play
knows reasoning your mind has not been taught.
And yea, does more with hints of plausibility
than you have to done for true philosophy.
And if you cannot see ideas in poems caught?
Then fool you were, and fool you stay, and ought.
