A day late, here's a beautiful poem by Robert Frost. It's called "Bond and Free." The contrast between love and thought, passion and pure reason, reminds me of the debate which has recurred in my Englightement-era literature class this semester. Is is better to operate under the dictates of reason, free of this world's distractions and error? Or should we listen to human feelings and compassion?
Or . . . can we simply embrace both? I think the answer lies there, since clearly, God gave us both faculties, not to oppose but to complement one another.
Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about--
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.
On snow and sand and turn, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world's embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.
Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius' disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.
His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.
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