Classic Poem

I.

Since Love's a Passion, Sense in Love,
Were senseless, dull Impertinence,
For Love, no more than Faith, we prove
By pedant Reason, babling Sense;
Faith in Love, as Religion too,
By Good-Works, not Good-Sense, we show.

II.

In busie Life's most base Concerns,
Of Honour, Pow'r, or Interest,
That Reason something more discerns,
Than Blind Faith can, it is confest;
But in the great Affair of Love,
Reason, shou'd Reas'ning, disapprove.

III.

In vain, some sober, thoughtless Fool,
Who has out-liv'd all Sense, or Wit,
May be so Formal, Grave, or Dull,
To strive to prove his Love by it;
Call Reason, Blind Love's Guide, or Light,
To help his Gropers, to go Right.

IV.

If 'tis a Light, 'tis such an one,
But as Jack in the Lantern is,
To help its Followers alone,
But by its Light, their Way to miss;
And make them, but the farther stray,
In its pursuit, out of their Way.

V.

The Stark-Blind Fool is happiest,
Who, in the Darkness of his Mind,
As in the Night, does Ease, and Rest,
Quiet, and Safety, likewise find;
Whose Blindness knows no present Fear,
Nor Foresight brings the Distant near.

VI.

So, Reason makes Man more a Brute,
Setting him more above the rest,
To lose his Senses in Dispute,
And make his Sense, his Will contest;
Whose Reason is, his Guilt, and Shame,
For Pleasures, Beasts, are not to blame.

VII.

Thus Man is but the greater Beast,
Since, of most Savage, Human-kind,
Tho' Lording it above the rest,
Is, by his Reason, more confin'd;
Whilst Beasts, for want of Reason, are
More free, both from his Guilt, Shame, Fear.

VIII.

Then Beasts, without Sense, or Controul,
Their Pleasures, Passions can fulfil:
When Man, for Reason, and his Soul,
Can but the less have his Free-Will.
Beasts, more Sense, wanting Reason, show,
Fear nothing, since they nothing know.

IX.

Whilst Babling Man, whom, we call Wise,
Both for his Sense, and Foresight too:
But, the more sensless Creature is,
To dread that, which he cannot know;
His Reason so, his Sense refutes,
When, against Nature, it disputes;

X.

His present Hopes and Happiness,
For future casual Fears destroys,
To show his Sense, for Reason less,
Makes sure his Grief, unsure his Joys;
More by his Thought, and Reason so;
Sensible, sensless Brute to grow.