Emotion versus intelligence in Ode to a Nightingale and Since feeling is firstWe must seek guidance from the emotions…not the mind . This romantic philosophy is represented in the works of “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats and “Since Feeling is First” by EE Cummings. Each poet addresses the complex relationship of following one's emotions and passion rather than one's thoughts. While Cummings advocates living life to the fullest in order to escape the limitations of thought, Keats suggests death as the only possible way to overcome this human consciousness. In Cummings's "Since Feeling is First," he compares the inadequacy of mental analysis to the beauty of emotional spontaneity through "arguing about feelings and abandoning inhibition in favor of greater forces" (Heyen 133). For the poet, acute perception comes from feeling and not from thought, which only allows us to “see” indirectly. In other words, the beauty of the experience is, in itself, proof of the power of beauty. Thus, Cummings wants the reader to “represent the image of what we see, forgetting all that existed before us” (Cohen 42). Such a statement is not a condemnation of rationality, but rather an affirmation of the mystery of things, more compatible with feeling than with knowledge, assuming that the latter is a measure devoid of love. For Cummings, the mind is only a villain when it dissociates itself from feeling. Yet, with his first line, it is very important that he convinces his reader of his premise that “feeling comes first”. Because Cummings writes a poem of seduction. He tells the woman in the poem, in a carpe diem manner reminiscent of 17th-century style, to make good use of time, to act on her feelings, to abandon her "syntax" in the middle of the paper. ..... scum, Gerald. Poetic declaration and critical dogma. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1980. Heyen, William. “In consideration of Cummings.” Spring of the Southern Humanities Review. 1983: 131-42. Jarrell, Randall. “The profession of poet”. Autumn partisan review. 1950: 724-31. Knight, G. Wilson. The Starry Dome - Studies in the poetry of vision. New York: Barnes and Noble Inc., 1960. Maurer, Robert E. “Latter Day Notes on the Language of EE Cummings.” EE Cummings: A Collection of Critical Essays. 1972: 79-99. Alive, Leone. English poetry and its contribution to the knowledge of a creative principle. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983. Wesolek, George. "EE Cummings: a re-examination". Renaissance Autumn. 1965: 3-8. Williams, Meg Harris. Inspiration from Milton and Keats. Totowa: Barnes and Nobles books, 1982.