“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then yo…“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4-5Ever since the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge had been eaten any cognizance became an attribute of evil. So to read books in order to widen one’s horizons means to sign a pact with the devil…Pillowed on evil, Satan Trismegist Ceaselessly cradles our enchanted mind, The flawless metal of our will we find Volatilized by this rare alchemist.The Devil holds the puppet threads; and swayed By noisome things and their repugnant spell, Daily we take one further step toward Hell, Suffering no horror in the olid shade.And of course the poets, who manage to pack their words in the most seductive opuses, are the worst of tempters…When by an edict of the powers supreme A poet’s born into this world’s drab space, His mother starts, in horror, to blaspheme Clenching her fists at God, who grants her grace.So when the poet unsheathes his stylus and applies it to vellum the flowers of evil effloresce…Such are the poet’s morose ideals: What my heart, deep as an abyss, demands, Lady Macbeth, is your brave bloody hands, And, Aeschylus, your dreams of rage and fright, Or you, vast Night, daughter of Angelo’s, Who peacefully twist into a strange pose Charms fashioned for a Titan’s mouth to bite.But when poets die their poems continue to live…Then, O my beauty, tell the insatiate wormWho wastes you with his kiss,I have kept the godlike essence and the formOf perishable bliss!“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin…” Matthew 6:28