Jarl learns these facts: before the universe
flared forth there was no space, there was no time,
no particles, and, this he thinks was worse,
no rules for interaction, nought was prime.
‘This,’ says Jarl, ‘we’ll celebrate in verse.
We’ll fill up churches with enlightened cant
and live it up, if I can get a grant.’

Jarl finds a rich man who becomes his sponsor,
a third-generation heel in need of soul.
They form a Study Centre staffed by Mensa
members who eschew to ask for doles
or work. Jarl sets them up to be the censors
that he can trust: their canards can extol
non-science that he will ‘by chance’ extract
from pits where he goes digging for The Fact.

With funds, long years, and boffin sycophants,
Jarl sifts the scientists’ golden finds on How.
He has a ball there in his enceinte
and, melting, funds his finds into a Cow
of Gold. And Jarl, self-tenured hierophant,
goes out to spread good news from the Centre’s roof
in tones of culture, learning and real couth.