Blessed the tree, which is barely capable of feeling,
and more so the hard stone, for it feels nothing at all;
for there is no greater pain than the pain of being alive,
nor greater sorrow than conscious life.
To be and know nothing, and to be without a certain course,
and the fear of having been, and a future filled with dread…
And the sure horror of being dead tomorrow,
and suffering for life, and for the shadow, and for
what we do not know and barely suspect,
and the flesh that tempts us with its fresh clusters,
and the grave that awaits us with its funeral boughs,
and not knowing where we are going,
nor where we have come from!…