C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Reason and Feeling

I KNOW that all beneath the moon decays,

And what by mortals in this world is brought,

In Time’s great periods shall return to naught;

That fairest States have fatal nights and days.

I know that all the Muse’s heavenly lays,

With toil of spirit, which are so dearly bought,

As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,—

That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.

I know frail beauty like the purple flower,

To which one morn oft birth and death affords;

That love a jarring is of minds’ accords,

Where sense and will envassal Reason’s power:

Know what I list, all this cannot me move,

But that, alas! I both must write and love.