William E. Stafford - Humanities Lecture lyrics

Aristotle was a little man with eyes like a lizard, and he found a streak down the midst of things, a smooth place for his feet much more important than the carved handles on the coffins of the great. He said you should put your hand out at the time and place of need: strength matters little, he said, nor even speed. His pupil, a king's son, died at an early age. That Aristotle spoke of him it is impossible to find—the youth was notorious, a conqueror, a kid with a gang, but even this Aristotle didn't ever say. Around the farthest forest and along all the bed of the sea, Aristotle studied immediate, local ways. Many of which were wrong. So he studied poetry. There, in pity and fear, he found Man. Many thinkers today, who stand low and grin, have little use for anger or power, its palace or its prison— but quite a bit for that little man with eyes like a lizard.