Classic Poem

I will however, in the manner of Boileau,
The massive beams of a great searchlight throw
Upon the clouds of an impending storm,
And make the attempt to charm while I inform. —
For the time-man, then, t might in fact be d .
Should you ignore that fact, you remain at sea —
I speak of the four-dimensional quartette.
The " motion" of old-fashioned " matter" — get
If you can that into the socket where
You kept your mental " time", and leave it there —
Popping " direction" in alongside of it,
Make it a good non-concrete sort of fit.
Once that's achieved, O.K., Leibnitz allows
(I'm with the old dog there) as much as Gauss
That Time can be checked only at limited range,
Existing as a parasite on Change.
Time's not distinct from things, he thinks. Instants
Without the " things" are legs without the pants,
Or vice-versa. Objects, when all-at-once ,
Is " space". But the same is " time" — or so it runs
In Leibnitz' text — when one-after-the-other,
You change — you move, you see — are the half-brother
Of yesterday's bonhomme, or the cousin, say,
You move — you change. And, then, you are one-way —
So far so good, as far as I'm concerned,
I stand for no such absolutes — returned
Into an independent thing from change,
To me Old Gaffer Time would just look strange:
Although subscribe I do not to the thesis
That monads should be cut up into pieces,
Existent only as a myriapod.
I demand no absolute, except only God.