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I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.

quote by Michel de Montaigne
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Down By The Riverside

(public domain)
Im gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside, down by the riverside
Im gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside,
Im gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more
Well, Im gonna put on my long white robe, (where? ) down by the riverside (oh)
Down by the riverside, down by the riverside
Im gonna put on my long white robe, (where? ) down by the riverside
Im gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more
Well, Im gonna lay down my sword and shield, (where? ) down by the riverside
Down by the riverside, down by the riverside
Im gonna lay down my sword and shield, (a-ha) down by the riverside
Im gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more
I aint a gonna study war no more, I aint a gonna study war no more

song performed by Elvis Presley
Added by Lucian Velea
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Schooling Relationship

you are the subject which i study
understanding and getting to know you psychologically
learning new ways to do right
ways to out do the wrong
you are the subject which i study
practicing and testing the goods and bads
you are the subject which i study
the time has come graduation is here
learn the subject by studing its psychology
understanding is the only way for success
now we move on to the next step
you are the subject which i study to major
as i take hold of your hand
guide you through rough times throughout this life
you are the subject which i study to major
as time goes by ticking away
i studied you all those days
i understand your past history life
your psychology means alot to me
mentally physically emotionally speaking
you are the subject which i study to major...

poem by Diara Armstead
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The Subject On This Love

The subject on this love is an object,
And the object is very sound and beautiful;
The subject on this love is a valley,
And the valley is very quiet and lovely;
The subject on this love is a fruit,
And the fruit is very sound and attractive;
The subject on this love is a mountain,
And the mountain is very high and lonely;
The subject on this love is a river,
And the river is very smooth and slippery;
The subject on this love is a seed,
And the seed is very fruitful and sweet;
The subject on this love is your milk,
And your milk is very thick and sweet;
The subject on this love is your lake,
And your lake is very fresh and aromantic;
The subject on this love is a garden,
And the garden is very thick and bushy;
The subject on this love is a room,
And that room is very romantic and peaceful;
The subject on this love is your apples,
And your apples are very passinate and emotional;
The subject on this love is a tree,
And that tree is very tall and bushy;
But the peace of this subject brings is like,
Two lovers swimming across the blue sea of love and blues.

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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The Interpretation of Nature and

I.

MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.


II.

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

III.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

IV.

Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.

V.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success.

VI.

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

VII.

The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms.

VIII.

Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.

IX.

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this -- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

X.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.

XI.

As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.

XII.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.

XIII.

[...] Read more

poem by Sir Francis Bacon
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Mister Fix It

I need to be there.
And not subject myself to riddles.
Just be there,
And put to rest...
My need to split!

I...
Need,
To be there!
And not subject myself to riddles.
Or feel I'm in the middle of something misfit!

I need to be there.
And not subject myself to riddles.
Just be there,
And put to rest...
My need to split!

I...
Need,
To be there!
And not subject myself to riddles.
Or feel I'm in the middle of something misfit!

Whenever I am called to play Mister Fix-It...
I need to be there.
To give time to it.

Whenever I am called to play Mister Fix-It...
I need to be there.
To give time to it.

I've never give up on a love,
I could not keep before we split.
It seems as if we've gotten use to getting a bit!
I need to be there.

Never give up on loving it,
Once a week.
Just...
To keep it secret!

B-b-b-be there.
And not subject myself to riddles.
Just be there,
And put to rest...
My need to split!

Just be there,
Whenever I am called to play Fix-It Quick.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Subject - 731

Flickering bulbs, pass a narrowing hall
Where the conscience ape still glimmers
His breath percolates, as he's held to the bed
Straps tugging away at his femur

Fear escalates, as the wheals nimbly turn
Boldly, towards the screaming tomb
For the ape is aware: that no one returns
Exactly intact from that room

Closer and closer, the ape slowly goes
Down to the jaws of the abyss
Where brothers now lay, mementoes for worms
Indiscriminately erased

Squirming with effort, he puts up a struggle
While white coats plant him a needle
Weight grows unsteady, the light becomes vague
Chemically, enabled feeble

As he enter the doors, the ape is aware
He's now subject 731#
An expendable study, a technician spare
With equivalent rights of a sponge

Inside's a lab, baring horrendous emanations
With tools the experiment shivers
It's a Mangles' study, and Ishii's vocation
The proud medicine of butchers

Nearby is a tray; arranged instruments
Precisely, sharpened and lethal
Eyes bulge in terror, as the subject experiment
Howls to the scalpel pierced navel

Cold hands neatly brush, liquid gel to his brow
As electrodes are strapped to his temples
Lips shyly quiver, apprehension out loud
To incremental series of voltage

A lamp hits his face, obscuring the sight
While figures converge in union
One injects a syringe, near his right eye
Exploding fresh bodily torture

It burns like napalm, shredding his lungs
Into a fiery chasm
Abscess engorge, ripping cutaneous pus
Causing involuntary spasms

[...] Read more

poem by Kevin Patrick
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The Riddle of Cosmos

The Riddle of Cosmos
The singularity of the Universe—
the Bing Bang rang
ten thousand million years ago—
was the theory propounded—So
the scientists in unison sang.

They set themselves to find
the important property that did bind
all matter to confer its mass, size and shape.
The riddle of the cosmos to solve
the physicists did evolve
"The Standard Model" of Particle Physics.

Fundamental particles twelve
of this theory
and fundamental forces four
save gravity
govern the dynamics
of the Universe.

In an invisible ubiquitous field
through the entire Universe' energy field
permeated an influence called Higgs field.
In Particle Physics
with his work on quantum mechanics
in the Universe' over-all dynamics
our Indian scientist " Bose" is seen
having worked with the famous Einstien
to have brought out the statistics, ‘Bose-Einstien'.

This earned the name ‘Boson'
for a sub-atomic particle
for a force carrying article.
By the English physicist Higgs
it was postulated
in the accepted "Standard Model of Physics"
that a missing piece existed.
In the jig-saw puzzle
called the Universe
the missing piece
was the particle ‘Higgs Boson'
now dubbed the ‘God Particle'—
since ‘tis everywhere and powerful
yet so hard to find and full!

The European Organization
For Nuclear Research (CERN)
took upon itself to learn
and detect the elusive particle.

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poem by Chandra Thiagarajan
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Canto the Twelfth

I
Of all the barbarous middle ages, that
Which is most barbarous is the middle age
Of man; it is -- I really scarce know what;
But when we hover between fool and sage,
And don't know justly what we would be at --
A period something like a printed page,
Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were; --

II
Too old for youth, -- too young, at thirty-five,
To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore, --
I wonder people should be left alive;
But since they are, that epoch is a bore:
Love lingers still, although 't were late to wive;
And as for other love, the illusion's o'er;
And money, that most pure imagination,
Gleams only through the dawn of its creation.

III
O Gold! Why call we misers miserable?
Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall;
Theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable
Which holds fast other pleasures great and small.
Ye who but see the saving man at table,
And scorn his temperate board, as none at all,
And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing,
Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring.

IV
Love or lust makes man sick, and wine much sicker;
Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss;
But making money, slowly first, then quicker,
And adding still a little through each cross
(Which will come over things), beats love or liquor,
The gamester's counter, or the statesman's dross.
O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper,
Which makes bank credit like a bank of vapour.

V
Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign
O'er congress, whether royalist or liberal?
Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain? [*]
(That make old Europe's journals squeak and gibber all.)
Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain
Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?
The shade of Buonaparte's noble daring? --
Jew Rothschild, and his fellow-Christian, Baring.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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On The Pleasures Of College Life

With tears I leave these academic bowers,
And cease to cull the scientific flowers;
With tears I hail the fair succeeding train,
And take my exit with a breast of pain.
The Fresh may trace these wonders as they smile;
The stream of science like the river Nile,
Reflecting mental beauties as it flows,
Which all the charms of College life disclose;
This sacred current as it runs refines,
Whilst Byron sings and Shakspeare's mirror shines.
First like a garden flower did I rise,
When on the college bloom I cast my eyes;
I strove to emulate each smiling gem,
Resolved to wear the classic diadem;
But when the Freshman's garden breeze was gone;
Around me spread a vast extensive lawn;
'Twas there the muse of college life begun,
Beneath the rays of erudition's sun,

Where study drew the mystic focus down,
And lit the lamp of nature with renown;
There first I heard the epic thunders roll,
And Homer's light'ning darted through my soul.
Hard was the task to trace each devious line,
Though Locke and Newton bade me soar and shine;
I sunk beneath the heat of Franklin's blaze,
And struck the notes of philosophic praise;
With timid thought I strove the test to stand,
Reclining on a cultivated land,
Which often spread beneath a college bower,
And thus invoked the intellectual shower;
E'en that fond sire on whose depilous crown,
The smile of courts and states shall shed renown;
Now far above the noise of country strife,
I frown upon the gloom of rustic life,
Where no pure stream of bright distinction flows,
No mark between the thistle and the rose;
One's like a bird encaged and bare of food,
Borne by the fowler from his native wood,
Where sprightly oft he sprung from spray to spray,
And cheer'd the forest with his artless lay,

Or fluttered o'er the purling brook at will,
Sung in the dale or soar'd above the hill.
Such are the liberal charms of college life,
Where pleasure flows without a breeze of strife;
And such would be my pain if cast away,
Without the blooms of study to display.
Beware, ye college birds, again beware,
And shun the fowler with his subtile snare;

[...] Read more

poem by George Moses Horton
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The Mystery Remains story poem

By my lanthorn dimly burning.
I have trouble in discerning
the faint words scrawled upon the page
By the hand of a long dead sage.

What I study is forbidden
a secret I must keep hidden.
I dare not study it by day
and that is why I hide away.

In the dark hours of the night.
I study by a lanthorns light.
Lest the priesthood should suspect.
For they would kill me to protect

from what they see as wizardry
although it’s only chemistry.
The shaveling priests of Mother Church
have full authority to search.

As and when and where they choose
.a power open to abuse
And they abuse it readily
in their search for men like me.

Men who defy authority,
pursue their studies secretly.
The church pretends to safeguard souls
but aims to keep in place controls.

Which keep the people ignorant
so that they will accept the cant.
The falsehoods and hypocrisy
of the priests more easily.

The common man must never know.
Because the church will have it so.
That education is the key
to knowledge which will set them free.

From religious domination.
To me a foul abomination.
The Holy Book from which they preach
written in a language will do not teach

To any but the favoured few
Who think the same way that they do.
Which will maintain the Status Quo
beneath the piety they show.

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poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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To My Sons, Eddie & Edwin

You're my cute little son,
But you're always stubborn,
Fast to get anger and upset
Very small hearted person.

Why you so like that
Give me the reasons
Why? , why? , why?
Why you so disobedient person?

You all are clever
But lazy and hard headed
Sometimes, you are good
But you're very naughty boy.

Always Be a good boy
My boy, my boy,
Listen to elderly always,
Respect your parents.

Please study hard
Study smarter
Future in your hands
No one can change you
Unless yourself.

Don't play only
Remember to study things
You love and likes
Learn as much as you can.

Time is short,
Time never return,
Study when you're young
Study when you're grow up too.

Stop playing games,
Start your lessons on time
Stop fooling around,
Stop arguing with parents.

My sons, Eddie and Edwin
Always I love you all
No matter Where,
No matter When,
No matter How.
You're always my sons.

poem by Lawrence Hiung
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
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A Map Of Culture

Culture

Contents

What is Culture?

The Importance of Culture

Culture Varies

Culture is Critical

The Sociobiology Debate

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Signs and Symbols

Language

Terms and Definitions

Approaches to the Study of Culture

Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?

What is Culture?

I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .

Back to Contents

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poem by Nyein Way
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Gotham - Book III

Can the fond mother from herself depart?
Can she forget the darling of her heart,
The little darling whom she bore and bred,
Nursed on her knees, and at her bosom fed;
To whom she seem'd her every thought to give,
And in whose life alone she seem'd to live?
Yes, from herself the mother may depart,
She may forget the darling of her heart,
The little darling whom she bore and bred,
Nursed on her knees, and at her bosom fed,
To whom she seem'd her every thought to give,
And in whose life alone she seem'd to live;
But I cannot forget, whilst life remains,
And pours her current through these swelling veins,
Whilst Memory offers up at Reason's shrine;
But I cannot forget that Gotham's mine.
Can the stern mother, than the brutes more wild,
From her disnatured breast tear her young child,
Flesh of her flesh, and of her bone the bone,
And dash the smiling babe against a stone?
Yes, the stern mother, than the brutes more wild,
From her disnatured breast may tear her child,
Flesh of her flesh, and of her bone the bone,
And dash the smiling babe against a stone;
But I, (forbid it, Heaven!) but I can ne'er
The love of Gotham from this bosom tear;
Can ne'er so far true royalty pervert
From its fair course, to do my people hurt.
With how much ease, with how much confidence--
As if, superior to each grosser sense,
Reason had only, in full power array'd,
To manifest her will, and be obey'd--
Men make resolves, and pass into decrees
The motions of the mind! with how much ease,
In such resolves, doth passion make a flaw,
And bring to nothing what was raised to law!
In empire young, scarce warm on Gotham's throne,
The dangers and the sweets of power unknown,
Pleased, though I scarce know why, like some young child,
Whose little senses each new toy turns wild,
How do I hold sweet dalliance with my crown,
And wanton with dominion, how lay down,
Without the sanction of a precedent,
Rules of most large and absolute extent;
Rules, which from sense of public virtue spring,
And all at once commence a Patriot King!
But, for the day of trial is at hand,
And the whole fortunes of a mighty land
Are staked on me, and all their weal or woe
Must from my good or evil conduct flow,

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Churchill
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The Borough. Letter IV: Sects And Professions In Religion

'SECTS in Religion?'--Yes of every race
We nurse some portion in our favour'd place;
Not one warm preacher of one growing sect
Can say our Borough treats him with neglect:
Frequent as fashions they with us appear,
And you might ask, 'how think we for the year?'
They come to us as riders in a trade,
And with much art exhibit and persuade.
Minds are for Sects of various kinds decreed,
As diff'rent soils are formed for diff'rent seed;
Some when converted sigh in sore amaze,
And some are wrapt in joy's ecstatic blaze;
Others again will change to each extreme,
They know not why--as hurried in a dream;
Unstable, they, like water, take all forms,
Are quick and stagnant; have their calms and storms;
High on the hills, they in the sunbeams glow,
Then muddily they move debased and slow;
Or cold and frozen rest, and neither rise nor flow.
Yet none the cool and prudent Teacher prize.
On him ther dote who wakes their ectasies;
With passions ready primed such guide they meet,
And warm and kindle with th' imparted heat;
'Tis he who wakes the nameless strong desire,
The melting rapture and the glowing fire;
'Tis he who pierces deep the tortured breast,
And stirs the terrors never more to rest.
Opposed to these we have a prouder kind,
Rash without heat, and without raptures blind;
These our Glad Tidings unconcern'd peruse,
Search without awe, and without fear refuse;
The truths, the blessings found in Sacred Writ,
Call forth their spleen, and exercise their wit;
Respect from these nor saints nor martyrs gain,
The zeal they scorn, and they deride the pain:
And take their transient, cool, contemptuous view,
Of that which must be tried, and doubtless may be true.
Friends of our Faith we have, whom doubts like these,
And keen remarks, and bold objections please;
They grant such doubts have weaker minds oppress'd,
Till sound conviction gave the troubled rest.
'But still,' they cry, 'let none their censures spare.
They but confirm the glorious hopes we share;
From doubt, disdain, derision, scorn, and lies,
With five-fold triumph sacred Truth shall rise.'
Yes! I allow, so Truth shall stand at last,
And gain fresh glory by the conflict past: -
As Solway-Moss (a barren mass and cold,
Death to the seed, and poison to the fold),
The smiling plain and fertile vale o'erlaid,

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poem by George Crabbe
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Consequently he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics.

quote by Maimonides
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Sixth Book

THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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Table Talk

A. You told me, I remember, glory, built
On selfish principles, is shame and guilt;
The deeds that men admire as half divine,
Stark naught, because corrupt in their design.
Strange doctrine this! that without scruple tears
The laurel that the very lightning spares;
Brings down the warrior’s trophy to the dust,
And eats into his bloody sword like rust.
B. I grant that, men continuing what they are,
Fierce, avaricious, proud, there must be war,
And never meant the rule should be applied
To him that fights with justice on his side.
Let laurels drench’d in pure Parnassian dews
Reward his memory, dear to every muse,
Who, with a courage of unshaken root,
In honour’s field advancing his firm foot,
Plants it upon the line that Justice draws,
And will prevail or perish in her cause.
‘Tis to the virtues of such men man owes
His portion in the good that Heaven bestows.
And, when recording History displays
Feats of renown, though wrought in ancient days,
Tells of a few stout hearts, that fought and died,
Where duty placed them, at their country’s side;
The man that is not moved with what he reads,
That takes not fire at their heroic deeds,
Unworthy of the blessings of the brave,
Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
But let eternal infamy pursue
The wretch to nought but his ambition true,
Who, for the sake of filling with one blast
The post-horns of all Europe, lays her waste.
Think yourself station’d on a towering rock,
To see a people scatter’d like a flock,
Some royal mastiff panting at their heels,
With all the savage thirst a tiger feels;
Then view him self-proclaim’d in a gazette
Chief monster that has plagued the nations yet.
The globe and sceptre in such hands misplaced,
Those ensigns of dominion how disgraced!
The glass, that bids man mark the fleeting hour,
And Death’s own scythe, would better speak his power;
Then grace the bony phantom in their stead
With the king’s shoulder-knot and gay cockade;
Clothe the twin brethren in each other’s dress,
The same their occupation and success.
A. ‘Tis your belief the world was made for man;
Kings do but reason on the self-same plan:
Maintaining yours, you cannot theirs condemn,
Who think, or seem to think, man made for them.

[...] Read more

poem by William Cowper
Added by Poetry Lover
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That attitude does not exist so much today, but in those days there was a very sharp distinction between basic physics and applied physics. Columbia did not deal with applied physics.

quote by Gordon Gould
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Roman Cemetery

Abused have been the Romans
by certain scholars of more recent times
for not creating metaphysics
like other glorious nations,
but only aqueducts, roads, colosseums, forums,
the eternal city, castra, border, earthwork.
Abused have been the Romans
for building only houses, with atria
receiving daylight from above,
and with the warning on their doorsills: cave canem.

If fate would have you come to Rome some day
and deep into the countryside, my friend, along the Via Apia
you were to wander,
you would then understand, oh, how unjust the balance is
in which people and peoples weigh
each other’s hearts and virtues. For you would see a Way
unrolling on and on into the landscape,
stone after stone, all fitting,
a Way lined left and right
with urns, sarcophaguses, mausoleums
preserving ashes, relics sheltering.

Thus did the Romans see the Way, defying every limit,
into the mighty realm of life through death advancing,
laid out in rows
on either side. And those who in the shade of cypresses
in sarcophaguses are sleeping, hear the sound
of shields and lances, hear the cohorts marching,
the wheels of chariots, the horses’ neighing. In due course
all this no longer does exist
but the more ancient dead still listen to the Way
that sounds on earth.

Thus did the Romans visualize a cemetery:
a way lined with two rows of silences.
And that is Roman metaphysics: a Way.
A way advancing through the dead, not through the quick.

poem by Lucian Blaga, translated by Dan Duţescu
Added by Dan Costinaş
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