Love's Argument With Reason.

A poem by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

La ragion meco si lamenta.


Reason laments and grieves full sore with me,
The while I hope by loving to be blest;
With precepts sound and true philosophy
My shame she quickens thus within my breast:
'What else but death will that sun deal to thee--
Nor like the phoenix in her flaming nest?'
Yet nought avails this wise morality;
No hand can save a suicide confessed.
I know my doom; the truth I apprehend:
But on the other side my traitorous heart
Slays me whene'er to wisdom's words I bend.
Between two deaths my lady stands apart:
This death I dread; that none can comprehend.
In this suspense body and soul must part.