Why?

I tell you how I feel on this or that,
As simply as a child confesses at
His mother's knee. You tease and ask me why,
Smiling down on me with quizzing eye.

I do not answer, or I say, "because",
Which is a woman's way and always was.
I state a truth a fact I know full well:
The cause, the "why", I don't attempt to tell.

Philosophy explains, what ere I think,
I can resolve to causes, link by link^___
Not what I feel. Emotion is a king
Tyranical, who bears no questioning.

I lay mute reason by upon the shelf,
Feel so and so, and cannot help myself.
Then, when I tell you, do not put your "Why?"
Smiling down on me with your quizzing eye.

^__Ellen P. Allerton.

Walls of Corn and Other Poems
Ellen P. Allerton
(Hiawatha, KS: Harrington Printing Company. 1894)
Pages 138-139