Man once awoke
And first saw himself,
A break in the unity of life,
A monstrosity, an absurdity.
A species too greatly armed.
Its weapon like a sword without hilt,
It must be held by its blade,
And we turn one edge
Against ourselves.
Man looks out on the earth,
And it breathes, like a great lung;
Exhaling, life exits its pores;
But taking in its breath,
A rustle of spirits breaking
Sweeps through the multitudes,
And their corpses lash the ground
Like showers of hail.
Man did not only see
The count of his own days,
But graves were exhumed to his view,
The cries of grotesque cadavers,
The veil of the future was torn aside,
Revealing a nightmare
Of endless repetition.
And even as he stands
At the precipice of death,
He shapes new, terrifying promises
Behind that fearsome door.
Now at last we can trace the outline
Of our cosmic state:
Condemned to nameless horrors.
If we follow this thought through to the bitter end,
The final conclusion cannot be escaped:
As long as man toils beneath
The pure delusion that he will conquer the earth,
No alleviation of this great angst for life
Can ever be a possibility.
A man will come forth,
Who before all others
Strips his soul naked,
And gives himself over
To our deepest question,
Even unto the thought of extinction.
And such a rising howl,
From all the tribes of the earth,
Crying for his thousand-fold execution.
When his voice blankets the world
Like a funeral shroud,
His message will be heard
For the first and last time:
The mark of annihilation
Is written on thy brow.
How long will ye mill on the edge?
But there is one victory
And one salvation
Know thyselves;
Be unfruitful
And leave peace on Earth
After thy passing.
