The Art is complex. Any single spell
Demands its own well-chosen stones and herbs.
Preparing these, as wizards once knew well,
Was boredom fit to strain the strongest nerves.
Great spells were wrought, to end this patient pain.
Now would-be wizards only need a bag.
You reach within, and ask in language plain
For gem or feather, leaf, or lump of slag.
No-one need wonder whence these tokens come.
But I was curious. I learned a charm
To find where any object’s path begun.
I swear that I was not intending harm!
The source I found: six sorted heaps in Hell.
Those dread gates crack again with every spell.
The spell component pouch has an interesting history in D&D.