We don't have to know, only to be: let go the jumble of worn words, reason and vanity. - H.D.

The reason is:
rats leave the sinking ship
but we...
we...
didn't leave,
so the ship
didn't sink,
and that's madness,
Lear's song
that's Touchstone's forest jest,
that's swan of Avon logic.

Be indigestible, hard, ungiving.
so that, living within,
you beget, self-out-of-self,
selfless,
that pearl-of-great-price.

For one moment seek
a lesser beauty
and a lesser grace,
but you will find
no peace in the end
save in her presence.