DEAD THINKERS

R. Le #Gallienne was a minor poet mostly forgotten but I happen to have an anthology that includes a few of his poems

I think you may enjoy the irony in this one?
The spacing and italics are as close as I can get to the typesetting in the book.
I have no idea why the typesetter put a space before questions marks!

#ballade #greekphilosophers #atoms

Ballade of Dead Thinkers

R. Le Gallienne

Where's Heraclitus and his Flux

Of Sense that never maketh stay ?

Or Thales, with whom water sucks

Into itself both Clod and Clay ?

Or he, who in an evil Day

Νόμος and φύσις first employ'd ;

And of the Sum of Things doth say,

They all are Atoms in the Void ?

Where's grave Parmenides ? Death plucks

His Beard : and by the Velian Bay

Sleeps Zeno ; Plato's pen their Crux

Of One and Many doth portray.

Empedocles too, well-away,

His taste for climbing, unalloy'd

By prudence, led him far astray ;

They all are Atoms in the Void.

Where's Socrates himself, who chucks

Up Physics, makes of Sophists hay,

Into Induction briskly tucks,

And Definitions frames always ?

The good Athenians him did slay,

His Dialectic them annoy'd ;

And his Disciples, where are they ?

They all are Atoms in the Void.

Envoy.

Prince, tho' with these old names and grey

Our peace of mind be half destroyed,

Take comfort ; say they what they may,

They all are Atoms in the Void.