That the shadowy and still really are

Without the bodily form? Whence

All change and transformation

Are ever proceeding? How to define

What is death, and what is life?

What is meant by the unity of opposites?

Does the spiritual intelligence go away?

The shadowy, where does it dwell?

The subtle, whither does it proceed?

Such were the questions belonging

To the logic scheme in high antiquity.

All things, being arranged as they are,

Have no their proper definitions

Which could be fitly ascribed to them.

To describe an unusual subject today

We use to resort to some strange and

Even mystical expressions, wild and

Extravagant words and phrases to which

No definite meaning can be assigned.

Considering that men are sunk in ambiguity,

And cannot be talked to in dignified discourse,

We employ the words of endless applications

With important quotations to substantiate truth

And an abundance of corroborative illustrations.

We constantly indulge our own wayward ideas,

Trying not to make ourselves the slaves of them.