1. As though with dust I see you heaped,
Within a tomb that shows no trace or seam,

2. As though, if here your friends were,
You'd see them shun you as they walk between,

3. O fleeting one, whose feet each day,
Nearer death's confines stray and stray!

4. You turn your thoughts away from death
As though it had no claim on you, no right to smite;

5. Do you not see how life's estate
'Mongst us is apportioned share and share?

6. The same destroyer who laid low our sires
And tribes before, us too will end.

7. The mighty ones we knew are gone,
Their prides and powers lost, their names undone.

8. If earth should open up and show
Their bones, how many they would be!

9. So many steps led some man wrong,
So many led another right.

10. Seek sustenance in ways not banned;
Else life will no more relish or delight.

11. You cannot see the state you are in.
Deaf, blind to all but self, your vision's dim.

12. Man is hasty, weak and blind,
To knowledge of the absent little prone.

13. Most loud in claims of knowledge, still
The least equipped with learning of their own.

14. A silent lesson speaks of you.
As speech itself can be a lesson shown.

15. If you do not guard against each urge and whim,
You will misunderstand and fault will seem.