Sol 5.6

  1. Come, tell me—come, tell me:

    What are these beings?

  2. What are you? What am I? What are—

    —our existence and life?

  3. What is this earth, upon which have ris—

    —en the towering peaks?

  4. What is the sea, where, propelled by fi—

    —re, ships sail upon it?

  5. What is the land, crossed like whirl—

    —winds by the trains?

  6. And what is the sky, and those—

    —vast reaches and voids?

  7. What are the radiant stars within it,

    the withdrawing, coursing ones?

  8. What are these white nebulae,

    their depths packed with luminous bodies?

  9. How long will these lumi—

    —naries remain ablaze?

  10. What do those spheres seek in this—

    —haste?

  11. What is reason? What is thought? What are—

    —intelligence and the faculties?

  12. What is time, and what is—

    —the passing away of time?

  13. And what is space, and what are—

    —the directions within space?

  14. What is matter? What is attraction? What are—

    —rest and motion?

  15. And what is love, for which—

    —the young man and maiden meet?

  16. In meeting there is delight,

    and in parting, pain.

  17. A union—and after this—

    —well-ordered union, dispersal.

  18. Why should anything pass away,

    and why should anything endure?

  19. And perhaps these problems will—

    —be solved.

  20. Guide minds along a path,

    if there are guides among you.

  21. Slow, when I walk—

    —with my mind, are the steps.

  22. My mind moves onward, but—

    —obstacles impede it.

  23. Whenever I reflect, there are—

    —doubt’s stings within me.

  24. In everything I see,

    uncertainties hover around me.

  25. Indeed, I have looked, yet not at all—

    —have my observations availed me.

  26. As though all those—

    —things lay concealed;

  27. or else my eye, amid them,

    whenever it looked, was itself a mote.

  28. Perhaps I spoke a truth,

    and words betrayed it.

  29. Many a sound statement—

    —has been marred by errors.

  30. One faction’s vices—

    —are virtues to others.

  31. Put vanity aside: the faculties are not—

    —in you alone.

  32. Every living creature upon this—

    —earth has inventions of its own.

  33. If you have flown, then already—

    —the insects flew before you;

  34. or if you have dived, then already—

    —the turtle dived as you do.

  35. Concede, for these proofs of—

    —mine are confounding.

  36. Light is not equal, in the eyes of—

    —one who sees, to darkness;

  37. morning is not evening,

    nor is evening morning.

Sol 5.6