Classical.

The spoken word is air
It is the wind that buffets our cheeks
And like leaves and bark in the gust
Speech carries you along
And before you know it you're racing along
With the wind in your veins!
And the words in your heart
But like all speech it can be cleaved in two
Shrugged off like a breath of air

The written word is Earth
Cold and unchanging
It shakes you to the roots
Little is needed
Being so well-grounded
To push you up and off your feet
But like the Earth it seldom changes
Even when one feels it should

One's own opinions take water as their own
They flow and change
They are ever different
Coalescing into one another
The rivers flow to the inevitable end
Of the ocean of opinion
And like the liquid of life
They fit to those who hold them
Beware the bogs, mind you
A body of water, and opinion alone
Will stagnate
Until it is become toxic and acidic
Even to its holder

And finally

Ideas are fire
A fire destroys, consumes it all
The entirety of the forest's being
Just like an idea
Left unchecked the mind will become necrotic
And be burned by blisters of progress
But also the sources of new life
Are fires
Flaming ideas give life anew