Is It Wise? by Stevie Smith

IS IT WISE?

Is it wise
To hug misery
To make a song of Melancholy
To weave a garland of sighs
To abandon hope wholly?
No, it is not wise.

Is it wise
To love Mortality
To make a song of Corruptibility
A chain of linked lies
To bind Mutability?
No, it is not wise.

Is it wise
To endure
To call up Old Fury
And Pain for a martyr’s dowry
When Death’s a prize
Easy to carry?
No, it is not wise.

 
Stevie Smith, Selected Poems, ed. by James MacGibbon (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979), 47.