RECONCILIATION

How Reason and Emotion might collude
And then collaborate for our own good
Is just that philosophic attitude
The ancients advocated, as we should.

Emotion is an energetic horse
That, wild and rampant, brings us all to grief
And Reason must constrain to keep on course,
Establishing command and being its chief.

Yet Reason by itself is hard and cold,
Lacking Emotion’s fires to inflame
That passion and affection which draw gold
From cruder ore, which is our human aim.

If we would be perfected in our lives,
We must then reconcile contrary drives.

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