Please be reasonable I cried,
When I was young and small,
Listening for the sound
Of footfalls coming down the hall.

My father hit me with a leather belt.
This was to do me good.
"You must not read books by torchlight
It that well understood?"

Will reason win the day I ask
When we are gone to earth
When the cherry throws no blossoms
And pears will not give birth?

We forgot the rules, I think,
The reasons why we're here
Now naked in the storm we are
At the end of a brief career.

Of course we're all unreasonable
It's why no one understands
It's the gift of imagination
It makes you dream of other lands.

You want to go and conquer
Find treasure in the earth
And the only way of fighting death
Is constantly to give birth.

Reason does not shape our end
Or hew it how we may
The end of man is coming
Almost any day.

Man has always been unreasonable.
We once crawled out of the sea
So what sort of other creature
Would you prefer to be?