Vanity of Vanities

Vanity of Vanities

Would you hear a threnody of life?
Of birth and death, and love and strife?

The young child gazes into that starlit night,
with his dreams still full of wonder and light.
The cosmos reflects his unbridled glee.
Shall I be a thinker or a lover says he.

But in truth it was all a mirage,
as the cosmos has want for a cause.
As a thinker he fulfills his dreams of youth,
and slowly climbs the mountains of truth.

But in his heart festers an enduring malaise,
and soon he dreams of distant days.
Happy does the lion sleep and the eagle fly,
yet in his soul he knows but “why”.

He gazes down into the mountainside,
and soon recalls his would-be bride.
With tears he recalls her loving face,
and longs for her warm embrace.

And with bitterness he sees,
how this life deceives.
Alone and in the mountain cold,
there he is destined to grow old.

And what of the lover?
Surely a different fate he would discover?
But he is tortured by the lover’s curse.
New wrinkles bloom with each dawn’s rebirth.

And as he slowly dies,
his bride’s once ardent love belies.
To be loved again it is much too late.
Its secret aim—not joy—but to procreate.

He gazes up towards the mountain, the divine.
But now he is too weary to climb.
And tears stream down from his eyes,
For he is neither loved nor wise.

Do it or do it not,
You will yet think “I ought”
And ought you have, what would been?
A life without suffering or sin?

And now after a long and bitter plight,
both men gaze back into God’s light.
And thus speaks the voice bellowing in the deep:
“Vanity of vanities... all is vanity. Now sleep.”