I have been taught by dreams and fantasies

Learned from the friendly and the darker phantoms

And got great knowledge and courtesy from the dead

Kinsmen ayd kinswomen, ancestors and friends

But from two mainly

Who gave me birth.

Have learned and drunk from that unspending good

These founts whose learned windings keep

My feet from straying

To the deadly path

That leads into the sultry labyrinth

Where all is bright and the flare

Consumes and shrivels

The moist fruit.

And there dry at last time takes away

And taking leaves all things in their right place

An image of forever

One and whole.

And now that time grows shorter, I perceive

That Plato’s is the truest poetry,

And that these shadows

Are cast by the true.