“And it’s just a box of rain
I don’t know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
Or leave it if you dare.”

 Songwriters: Philip Lesh / Robert C. Hunter

Philosophy or poetry?
Plato preferred philosophy,
He would, being a philosopher.
Poets, of course, are liars by profession,
We endeavour to give an air of truth
To airy nothings.
Poets, like children, personify ideas
Through extended metaphor, conceited similes,
Imagine, in more than one dimension,
A golden age, an Arcadia, which poets have invented.
Philosophers are bewilder’d by these groundless speculations.
As in Plato’s republic of ideal forms.
Poets are guided by implication, connotation, association.
Plato thinks each effect has a discernible cause
Poets disagree, in a cacophony of inequality.
Is lacking in virtue or sense a disqualification for a poet?
Poets think not, balance want with need,
And perceive freely that
when men compete for goods and wealth
they forget the simple intricacies of self!