"Was the universe a quotation?...

"Was the universe a quotation?" Burton wondered--
"Thus is man that great Amphibian.
Either someone like us night-foundered here
(this pendant world, in bigness as a star
of smallest magnitude clog by the moon)
groping for trout in a peculiar river,
or in the emptier waste, resembling air,
servile to all the ethereal influences.
Rejoice; for I will end the wave, and foam,
and shall in sad lonesome ways, a lively sprite,
make my dark heavy metrical composition light, and light,
'I am no pickpurse of another's wit.'