Classic Poem

To get away from Reason seems
To be the first thing one must do
To live in happiness; with dreams
Some cloud the mind, and some bedew
The intellect with subtler juice,
Till good Lyaeus sets them free;
Some use tobacco, some abuse
The herbs of healing: suffer me
To live with leathery women and men
Who give their whole mind up to horses;
Mount and dismount and mount again,
And leave the stars to their own courses.
On through the morning air to go,
To break the rainbow on the briar,
To hold the horse, to hear him blow
The bellows of primaeval fire;
To feel life surging through the dark
As waywardly as once it came
Before the filched unnatural spark
Outshone the kindly natural flame.
Thus was the Ancient Wisdom found,
A wisdom suited to my mind,
And taught by Chiron the renowned,
The man and animal combined.