Classic Poem

3.

At Stagira lies Saint Belle
and there lies also the body of Aristotle.
And you shall understand
that her bones are anointed
with the gum of plum trees
and that all men are used
to attend her grave on Lent.

And men say that in her youth
she was led into a garden of Caiaphas
and there she was crowned
with the sweet thorn called barbariens.

But now this is no more
but a tablet seven cubits long
above her head
on which the title is written
in Hebrew, Greek and Latin
and the date
when it was laid in the earth.

And the body of Aristotle
stinks too in a casket
at Stagira but the eyes
are in Paris in the king's chapel.
Yet the emperor of Almayne
claims he has them,
and I have oftentime seen them
but they are greater
than those in Paris.