An Explanation

Reason and love both work to complete our being: one is the arc of descent, the other the arc of ascent. Reason is bound to the rule of outward things; love is colorless and utterly free. Your reason shows you the manners of the path and tells you the qualities of those who walk it. Your love carries you toward the goal with this permit, even if your love is only the borrowed, earthly kind. Through it you become wholly real, for the metaphor is a bridge to truth. Whether love springs from this world or the next, in the end it guides us to that King.